

# THERE MIGHT BE DRAGONS

Kram Scavok

### There Might Be Dragons

### Kram Scavok

### Published by Kram Scavok at Smashwords

### Copyright 2018 Kram Scavok

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Dedication

### To Steve, for help and guidance along the way.

### To Kathy, for much more than can be listed here.

### Contents

Chapter 1. Fresh Start

Chapter 2. Stealing Back the Map

Chapter 3. The Cave

Chapter 4. Meeting Strangers

Chapter 5. Sir Nigel

Chapter 6. Preparing for the Tournament

Chapter 7. At the Joust

Chapter 8. The Feast

Chapter 9. In the Dungeon

Chapter 10. Freed by Sir Nigel

Chapter 11. Finding the King

Chapter 12. Finding the Portal

Chapter 13. Preparing Castle Defenses

Chapter 14. Assault on the Castle

Chapter 15. Home Again

About the Author

Other Books by Kram Scavok

# Chapter 1. Fresh Start

Will Barclay felt the warm summer sun shining through the window of his second-floor apartment. He squinted against its brightness. Time to get up. Already he could hear noise from the early morning downtown traffic. From the kitchen, he heard the gentle bump of cabinets closing. His twin sister, Alia, was already up working on her breakfast. Will smiled inwardly. They were settling nicely into their new place.

Today, the beginning of summer, marked one week since Will and Alia had graduated from Farmstead Academy. Orphaned at six months, all either Will or Alia could remember as home was Farmstead Home for Children. The Farm, as it was known in its early years, was a working farm that served as a home for about fifty orphaned children of various ages. By far the youngest two children at the home, Will and Alia had occupied the same room together until they were ten and bonded early as they struggled with the rigors of the home. By the time they were ready for school, Farmstead Home had become Farmstead Academy and included both primary and secondary school children. With live-in students plus an additional two-hundred day students, the farm and school were a beehive of activity from dawn to dusk.

Will, the quieter of the two, gravitated toward working with the animals on the farm. He had a natural talent for dealing with the different personalities inherent in the various species. Chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, cattle and a few farm peacocks along with the several farm dogs and cats all attracted his attention and thrived in his care. In addition, Will loved to run, and from an early age, he was prone to going on runs either solo or with a small band of like-minded students.

Alia, the more outgoing of the two, had different interests. From early on, she was determined to have access to all places on the farm and the school regardless of what locks barred her way and took it as a personal challenge not to get caught while gaining access. She read everything she could get her hands on regarding the works of locks, safes, and electronic surveillance systems. From a young age, she would follow the visiting tradesmen responsible for fixing locks and maintaining the school security system watching and asking questions. Even before she became a teenager, she could access any locked door on the premises. And not get caught.

She was also attracted to martial arts. She was devoted to practicing Aikido and was making her way up the belt ranks and competing on the Academy fencing team.

Despite their different interests, all through their school years, Will and Alia were inseparable. Though their work on the farm and in school was exemplary, perhaps because they had never been anywhere from a very young age, they both had an insatiable curiosity about what was beyond the borders of the farm and school where they spent so much time. Unauthorized trips off campus in various and sundry mini adventures to explore the nearby city with a small group of adventurous fellow students were what they spent their time plotting, planning and carrying out. Caught being absent from school due to these same adventures caused them to be regulars at the extra disciplinary sessions held for those Farmstead Academy students who the staff felt needed "additional guidance".

Midway through their senior year came an occurrence that challenged their adventurous spirits. The deed to Farmstead Academy disappeared and, at the same time, a local land developer produced a deed that he said gave him the rights to much of the land. This, coupled with a convenient fire in the county land records office, left the ownership of the land in dispute. The headmaster, Sirus Colby, and the staff at Farmstead Academy learned that the developer was going to go public and file a suit in the local court to take over much of the Academy property. Without adequate funds to fight the case in court, Farmstead Academy was in danger of being dissolved.

Around the time that the deed disappeared, a local survey crew had been working on and around the farm performing survey work for the city. Alia learned that one of the children had seen a man on the survey crew coming out of Mr. Colby's office. Through some diligent inquiries, Will learned that the survey company was closely associated with the land developer. They suspected that the local land developer was crooked and had arranged both the theft of the deed and the fire at the county courthouse. Will hacked into the email of the developer and found evidence that they were holding the deed in their downtown office. In a carefully planned nighttime excursion to downtown, Will and Alia explored the office of the land developer, including some locked file cabinets, and recovered the deed. Will and Alia simply returned the deed to its original location in Sirus Colby's office. When faced with sudden reappearance of the deed at Farmstead Academy, the local developer quickly dropped his plans to acquire the property. Farmstead Academy was back on track. Will joked that maybe they had a future in retrieval of stolen items. They could call themselves Recovery Inc.

Following the deed recovery, their required attendance at disciplinary sessions had fallen way off. They figured that somehow Sirus Colby had deduced that they were responsible for the return of the deed and was showing his appreciation.

Now they had graduated from Farmstead Academy and needed to make money to pay for attendance at the local college. The Academy had given them enough money for rent for a few months and Will and Alia managed to find a second-floor apartment on the edge of the city above a pizza place. The Academy had also provided its graduates with a list of job opportunities. Will and Ali planned to start working their way through the job list today.

Throwing his covers aside, Will swung his feet to the floor. He made his bed and moved into the kitchen. Alia was already seated at the kitchen table.

"How on earth can you eat that for breakfast?" he said, making a face and looking down at Alia.

Alia put down the fork that she had just used to gobble up a portion of the large slice of apple pie on the plate before her. She took a minute to wipe the milk mustache from her upper lip. Her face contorted into a grimace, her eyes squinched as she stared into space thinking. "Dunno," she concluded. "I just like it."

Alia had collected their mail and, between bites of pie and gulps of milk, was now reviewing it. "Junk, junk – at least it's not bills," she remarked as she examined the outside of each envelope and tossed them into the pile designated for trash. "Hey, here's an interesting one," she said, holding up a distinctive ivory-colored envelope from a place called The Gallery. "It's addressed to Mr. Will and Miss Alia Barclay

"Open it," replied Will.

Alia tore open the letter and was silent for half a minute as she read. "Huh!" she exclaimed, "listen to this _. We may have a job for you. You have been recommended to us by Mr. Sirus Colby of Farmstead Academy. Please call and arrange an interview. Come at your earliest convenience_."

"Not much information," said Will.

"Yea," agreed Alia. "As much of a headache as we were for the staff at Farmstead, I wonder what this is. Do you want to give them a call?"

"Sure," said Will.

After finishing breakfast, Will called The Gallery and made an appointment to visit. After the call, he remarked to Alia, "I spoke with The Gallery owner, a Mr. Weldon. He sounded nice enough, but he didn't give me any information on the job they had. Just said that he would give us details in person. He said that he is in a bit of a hurry to get someone on this job and would like to see us as soon as possible. So, we have an appointment later this morning."

"Sounds good to me," replied Alia. "The sooner we find out about the job, the sooner we can start adding to our depleted finances."

Despite their many adventures into the city, neither of them had ever heard of The Gallery. The time spent wondering about what kind of job The Gallery could possibly have for them was mercifully short. In just a few hours, Alia and Will were on the city bus travelling toward downtown in the direction of The Gallery.

As they travelled across town, the bus route passed through a quiet neighborhood.

"Look at that house," commented Alia pointing to a small two-story Craftsman-style bungalow. "That's the kind of house I would like some day."

Will agreed. The house was painted in lighter colors and had exposed rafters and beams. Stone covered the foundation walls. The small front yard looked well-kept and the front porch was immediately enticing. For two kids who had never known any home but the dormitory of The Farm, Will thought it would be a great place to live.

The bus route joined Main Street in the downtown part of the city. After a mile, they hopped off the bus and began walking down one of the intersecting streets. Off of Main Street, there was less automotive commotion and pedestrian traffic had thinned. They turned onto seventh, the street on which The Gallery was located. If they had not had the address plus been given explicit directions from Mr. Whelan, The Gallery would have been easy to miss. Seventh Street was mostly five- and six-story buildings but The Gallery itself was a small two-story building sandwiched between two larger office buildings.

The building was distinctly different from its neighbors. Surrounding buildings were mostly grey limestone with windows of glass framed in steel. The Gallery building was composed of large white, closely set marble blocks with thin lines of light gray mortar. At the center of the street-level floor, a large arched windowless wooden door was set into an intricately carved off-white marble surround. Directly over the door, in a rectangular stone, The Gallery was carved in script. The heavy dark wooden door set in the white marble gave the impression of a castle door rather than the door to a place of business. To the side of the door was a doorbell with a small sign above it that read: Hours by appointment. Please ring bell for service. They pressed the doorbell and could hear the faint echo of chimes within.

In less than a minute, the door opened. A large, neatly dressed man greeted them. His lined face showed no emotion, but his eyes flickered with an expression of recognition.

"Mr. Will and Miss Alia, I am Saydon Nemscally. Mr. Weldon is expecting you." He turned and began to lead them into The Gallery. "Please close the door behind you."

The mention of their names was a statement rather than a question and the man seemed perfectly confident that he knew who they were. His tone of familiarity was almost as if they had previously met. Alia gave Will a flick of raised eyebrows and a quizzical look. For sure, neither of them remembered meeting this man. He was tall but also wide-shouldered. He turned and began to lead the way down the hallway. It was like walking behind a moving door with objects obscured by his bulk suddenly coming into their line of sight.

The Gallery was a unique place. Will thought the variety of its contents made it more like a historical museum than a gallery. They were walking on a wide mahogany-red carpet down a hallway that traversed almost the entire length of the building. The walls of the hallway were covered with framed paintings and manuscripts. Both sides of the hallway were punctuated by wide arched doorways that opened into smaller rooms. As they followed Saydon down the main hallway, they caught glimpses of the contents of the other rooms. In one room, all of the walls held bookcases that went almost to the ceiling. They were filled with volumes that appeared ancient. The walls of other rooms, like the hallway, were hung with framed paintings and manuscripts. The center sections of most rooms held cases filled with jewelry as well as carved and crafted crystals, scepters and other ceremonial items. One room was completely filled with armor and ancient weaponry. On closer inspection, it was obvious that everything including the books was enclosed in some sort of casing – probably for security - as well as to protect the items from being handled or subjected to anything but a controlled environment. The items on display appeared to have been acquired for specific clients. As they passed, they could see that there was a small embossed card near each item marked with abbreviated script that indicated it was being held for someone. No names were listed – simply initials

At the end of the hallway was the doorway to an office. This door was similar to The Gallery front door except that it was of lighter wood and the upper half contained a large smoked glass window. Like the front door, the border consisted of intricate scrollwork. Saydon grasped the door knob and pulled the door wide to usher them inside. He motioned toward two plush deep-red velvet chairs and he indicated the man seated behind the large desk.

"Miss Alia, Mr. Will, this is Amadeus Weldon."

Amadeus Weldon rose from behind a large dark wood desk. He was a small, slim man with white hair and a full white beard. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. His face had a weathered look making him appear as though he spent much of his time outdoors. Will noted that his handshake was welcoming and firm, implying a reserve of strength not expected from his outward appearance.

Will and Alia sat as Mr. Weldon returned to his chair behind the desk. The desk appeared finely crafted and had the warm glow of well cared-for wood. Will had the impression that the office had been in use for a very long time. It had a huge bookshelf covering the entire wall behind the desk. The office had no windows except for the one in the office door. The room was lit by a chandelier that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. The effect was that the surface of the desk was well lit while there were shadows in all corners of the room. A small green glass-shaded banker's lamp provided additional working lighting for the large surface of the desk. It shone directly on a leather-bound folder resting in front of Amadeus Weldon.

"Good afternoon," he said – his voice was warm and friendly. "I am glad to finally meet you."

This was odd, thought Will. Again, they were being spoken to as if the person in The Gallery had some previous knowledge of them.

Amadeus Weldon continued. "Your headmaster, Sirus Colby, and I have been friends for a number of years. When I reached out to him for help and explained our predicament, he agreed that you two were ready for a job like this. I know what you did for Farmstead Academy and I think we have a problem that could utilize your talents. Two valuable objects have been lost from our collection. Because of the value of many of the items we handle, we always have excellent security in place. However, a month ago, a courier in route to The Gallery was robbed of a very old purple amethyst crystal. Then, last night, another courier was waylaid and the single item they were carrying was taken. Because these two items are related, we believe our couriers were targeted. We are fairly certain that we know who took the objects; however, there is absolutely no evidence pointing to the perpetrators, so we cannot go to the police. We would like you to get our items back. The thieves are skillful and experienced professionals. There may also be some danger; however, I think that you two are uniquely suited for the job and have a good chance for success."

"Dangerous?" Alia asked frowning slightly.

"If they caught you stealing . . . ah, recovering the objects, they might resort to physical means to get the items back."

That got Will's attention. Will and Alia had been in some scrapes before and had had some close calls in forays into the city. A few strains and sprains due to poor landings from misjudged heights but never had they felt in danger from any other person.

"I have mentioned the risk," Mr. Weldon continued. "Two further items to be discussed. What is it that was stolen and what would be the appropriate reward? Besides the crystal, we are asking you to recover what some collectors say is the very first example in a collection of fairy tale maps. It is the accompaniment of a very old book containing one of the first known fantasy tales. Reaching into his desk drawer, he brought out a leather-bound volume and placed it on his desk. The Kingdom of Alderwood was written in script on the cover. Engraved in the leather was a depiction of a castle seen from afar. In the sky over the castle hung two moons.

"The map is a detailed depiction of the kingdom in the story. For a number of reasons, the map is priceless. The crystal is of the same time period as the map and has some significance in interpretation of the map. Since we are simply asking you to recover these items, I am not prepared to tell you more at this point. We are offering you two enticements as a reward for taking on this task. The first is monetary, but the second is perhaps more valuable."

As he spoke, Mr. Weldon took a check ledger from his desk drawer and turned it so that both Alia and Will could see. A check written out to Recovery Inc. was the top check on the open page in the ledger. Alia's eyes grew large as the size of the reward became apparent. But more than that, her eyes flashed at Will as they both read the name of the company to which the check was made – Recovery Inc.! Not even Sirus Colby knew the name of the future business that they had joked about after recovering the deed to Farmstead Academy.

Mr. Weldon said "We know a bit more about the two of you perhaps than you think. I have taken the liberty of filing the appropriate paperwork for the creation of a company in your name. I believe Recovery Inc. is a name you are considering. Once you sign the paperwork, Recovery Inc. will exist. The check will be the first payment to your new company. I said, we think that you two are uniquely suited for this task. I am certain that The Gallery and others like us will have continued need for your services. The second part of the reward is simply this. We are prepared to tell you more about yourselves."

Will and Alia were speechless. Will was the first to recover his tongue.

"Since we only met today and we don't know you, what could you possibly know about us that we do not already know?"

Mr. Weldon replied calmly. "Both Mr. Nemscally and I knew your parents."

Will was stunned. He could see Alia was the same because Alia's mouth was open and her jaw had actually dropped as she stared at Mr. Weldon. But she recovered quickly,

"How could you possibly . . .?" she exclaimed.

"Quite simple," Mr. Weldon interrupted as a look of sadness passed across his face. "Your parents worked for me."

Will and Alia sat bolt upright, startled even more by this latest news. Not only did Mr. Weldon know their parent, they worked for him?

"We were told that our parents died in a car accident. Were they working for you then?" asked Will.

Mr. Weldon held up his hand with the palm outward – the universal stop sign. "As I indicated, I will share this information with you as part of the reward for this job. Suffice to say for now, your parents were working with me at the time and they were not killed in a car accident. They had aptitudes and skills that each of you have already begun to demonstrate. In that way, you are very much your parents' children."

Alia and Will were stunned and excited. In the past, they had attempted to find information on who their parents were and details of their deaths. However, they were told that the records of the circumstances of their arrival at the orphanage had been destroyed by a fire. There was nothing to be found in on line searches and there was nothing in the archives of the local paper. They could never even find out their parents' names. Now they had completely new information. Their parents had died in some mysterious way. And Mr. Weldon knew the story and knew their parents!

Mr. Weldon continued "Consider this task an employment tryout. This will give you an idea of the area in which we work and will give us an idea of the level of your skills."

"We? Who is we?" asked Will.

"That too is part of the explanation regarding your parents and is the reward for completion of the task. Suffice to say that there is an organization, of which The Gallery is just a part. It should take only a day or so to accomplish this assignment. Then you will have answers."

Will glanced at Alia. He could see the look of excitement in her eyes. Alia could see the wheels turning in his mind as Will was already planning next steps. Neither of them had any hesitation about taking the job.

"Who stole the items and where do you think they are now?" asked Will.

"Who is a couple of men who are the minions of a long-time rival of The Gallery. Where is more important. We have reason to believe that the map and the crystal are being held in the renovated Caverna Building, an office complex in mid-town, but they may be moved soon."

He opened a drawer to the desk and took out two pieces of paper and a small photograph that he laid on the desk.

"Here is a diagram of the building where we believe the items are," he said, unfolding a large sheet that appeared to be a blueprint of the building. "I have marked the location of the room where the items are most probably hidden. It is located in the offices of the Transworld Shipping Company. And here," he said, indicating the second paper, "is a sketch of what the map looks like."

He spread the page out on the desk on top of the blueprint. Alia and Will both leaned over the desk in order to get a better look. The map sketch was distinctive and impressive. The overall picture was of a castle set into some mountains. A field separated the castle from a large forest. At the far edge of the forest was another mountain range. The path through the forest to the mountains was unclear, but sketched into the other mountain was a large door. The most unusual part of the sketch, however, was the sky over the castle. It held two similarly sized moons. The moons were full in the sky over the castle.

From the time when she was a child, Alia was interested in fantasy comics involving swordplay and superheroes. This stemmed from Mr. Colby who had an extensive collection of fantasy comic books that he let all of the children living at the farm peruse. "I have never seen fantasy art like this," noted Alia. 'Is this from the 1940s and 50s?" For a fraction of a second, Will saw a shadow pass over Mr. Weldon's face as though he was going to make a comment. But his reply was straightforward. "The original is quite old. We are not exactly certain of its age." With that, he gathered the sketch and put it aside. Then he placed the photograph in front of Will and Alia.

"This is the crystal."

The picture was a color photograph of a large crystal held in a gloved hand. The base of the crystal was small crusted white crystals from which rose a purple stone. Six flat polished sides rose in parallel then angled sharply to form a pyramid meeting in a single point. The sharp edges of the crystal sparkled while a deep purple light emanated from within the stone.

For a second, both Will and Alia were transfixed by the beauty of the crystal.

Alia blinked recovering swiftly. "That's it then. We have the building plans and the likely location." And we know what we are looking for."

Will too was eager to get started. "We will do some recon today and, if everything looks OK, we will go in tonight."

"That would be most appreciated." replied Mr. Weldon, rising from his chair to show them out of his office. "As I indicated, we believe that the items may be moved soon."

Despite the enormity of the information that had been thrust upon them, both Will and Alia were focused. They were eager to complete the task and return to find out more about their parents and their association with The Gallery. They quickly said good-by to both Mr. Weldon and Saydon Nemscally and left the office and The Gallery and were on their way.

# Chapter 2. Stealing Back the Map

The day was warm and sunny with a breeze that made the walk from The Gallery to the Caverna building enjoyable. The Caverna building was a four-story gray granite structure that occupied one-fourth of the block in the heart of the downtown business area. A small alley separated it from the adjacent buildings on each side with a larger alley running behind the block of buildings. Will and Alia walked in the moderate pedestrian traffic across the street from the building. They circled the block, taking note of all possible entryways as well as points where utilities entered the building. The front of the first floor of the Caverna building was almost entirely glass, making it easy to see how it was laid out. The first floor was mostly atrium with a coffee shop on the left side and a news and magazine store on the other side. Both the news and magazine stores had entrances from the atrium, so there was a steady trickle of people in and out of the main revolving door located in the center of the building. They located a small coffee shop directly across from the Caverna building and went inside to watch the pedestrian traffic flow in and out of the building. They chose one of the wooden tables near the window and settled comfortably inhaling the aromas of percolating coffee blending with the subtle smell of the wood floors in the small shop.

"It looks like our best bet is to enter through the door off the side alley," said Alia. "As I remember from the building diagram, it is closest to the stairwell and we would get some shielding from any traffic on the street while we deal with the door lock and security system. The lock didn't look like anything special, so we should be in in a few minutes. We will need to by-pass the alarm, but I noticed the hook-up on the side of the building and it looks pretty standard."

They spent some more time watching people go in and out of the Caverna building. The elevators were located at the back of the atrium. Situated in front of the elevators was a small security station. People either stopped and signed in or simply nodded to the security guard as they made their way to the elevators.

"I suspect there is just daytime security," said Will. "Best bet is that he stays till the last person leaves then locks up. We can come tonight late enough to avoid any diligent workers and confirm. If there's a night watchman, we'll have to change plans."

With that, they left the coffee shop and went home to prepare for their evening excursion. Preparation was simple. Dark clothes, a few tools, a light dinner, rest.

There was no moon out and, even with streetlights on, the alleyway next to the Caverna building was very dark as they cruised past on the city bus. There was only the occasional auto on the street in front of the building and almost no pedestrian traffic. Perfect night for getting into the building without being seen, thought Will. Alia and Will got off the bus on a street several blocks down and one over. They made their way back and entered the main alley behind the block of buildings. Alia led the way down the alley with a small dimmed penlight to spot obstacles. They made their way to the smaller alley that ran along the side of the building and arrived at the side door. Will waited at the door while Alia began to carefully scale the side of the building. While both of them were adept at climbing, Alia was a more natural climber. From the time she was a small child, Alia was almost lizard-like in her ability to scale vertical surfaces. She could find handholds on almost anything that was not perfectly smooth. In addition, she had the skills to disarm the alarm.

The Caverna building was built of granite and afforded plenty of small handholds, so Alia was able to rapidly scale the wall, then attach her special climbing harness to the conduit where the external line from the alarm entered the building. She hung there briefly while she pulled out her tools.

"Ok, the alarm is disabled," she said after working inside the alarm box for a few minutes. She detached her harness, then climbed down. Will, having moderate lock-picking skills, was ready with the door. With Alia behind him, he opened the door and they both quickly entered the side of the building.

The door from the alley opened to a small atrium immediately behind the coffee shop. Off of the atrium was lowest level of the emergency exit stairwell that serviced the entire building. From a review of the building plans, they knew that the stairwell opened on each floor to a hallway that ran down the middle of the building parallel to the street in front. They entered the stairwell and climbed to the fourth-floor hallway.

Various offices occupied either side of the hallway. The night time lighting dimly lit the hall. Farther down the hall, they could see where the elevators opened on the left in the middle of the hallway. Alia and Will crept down the hall to find the office of Transworld Shipping almost directly across from the elevators. The front wall of Transworld was entirely glass with Transworld Shipping stenciled in large letters on the door. From the outside, they could see a small carpeted waiting room and sleek steel secretary's desk that fronted a complex of four offices all with doors closed. Will went to work on the lock in the door that opened from the hall into the waiting room and had it opened within a minute. They crossed the carpeting and stopped in front of the largest office. Will tried the door and it was also locked, but he was able to pick it quickly. They entered the room.

This office continued with the sleek modern look of the waiting room. Inside the office was a large desk with an upholstered leather chair, plus three smaller but similar chairs in front. Behind the desk were two large steel file cabinets. Will and Alia each took a cabinet and thoroughly searched through the files in the drawers. Nothing. The desk had a few drawers but these only held a few office items. Looking around, Alia's eyes settled on the large modern art painting on the wall.

"Behind there," she stated matter-of-factly.

Sure enough, the picture was hinged to the wall. Swinging it open revealed an old wall safe with a dial-lock. Quickly, Alia took out her small stethoscope and began to spin the dial and listen to the tumblers. After a few minutes, she had worked out the combination. She dialed the combination and clicked the lever to open the safe. Inside the safe was a large brown leather sack. Will reached into the safe and took out the sack, placing it on the office desk. He untied the leather tie that held the mouth of the sack closed. Opening the sack revealed the end of a rolled-up piece of parchment paper. The map! Setting the sack aside, Will withdrew the map and unrolled it so it was flattened out on the desk top. The map certainly was the one that had been depicted in the sketch that they had seen at The Gallery but it was significantly more beautiful. Despite the obvious age, the brown ink lines were sharp and clear and showed incredible detail. The effect was as if they were looking at a photograph with everything in sharp focus. The two moons practically glowed over the landscape depicted on the map. Will began to loosen the straps of the backpack he had brought to transport the map. Alia picked up the sack and looked inside. At the bottom of the sack was a small notebook. No crystal. She turned and looked into the safe. Besides a few papers, it was clear that there was nothing else in the safe.

"It must be somewhere else," she said. Just as she spoke, she noticed a small beam of red light coming from the inside edge of the safe. "Buggers!" she cried turning to Will. "This safe must have had a secondary alarm built in and we've triggered it. Let's move!"

Will hurriedly rolled up the map and thrust it back into the leather sack then dumped it into his backpack.

At the same time, they heard the screech of brakes outside. Alia pulled the curtains covering the office window aside and they both peeked through the window down to the main street below. A dark blue van had pulled abruptly to the curb directly in front of the Caverna building. The doors opened and three large men jumped out with guns drawn. Two headed for the front door while the other headed straight toward the alley and side door through which Alia and Will had gained entry.

"Looks like they're covering the main escape routes," said Alia. Her voice was calm and controlled with just a hint of urgency. "We need to go out the back delivery dock."

They unrolled their building map to look for the quickest pathway to the dock.

"It looks like there's no way down that doesn't cross the way they will be coming up" said Will. He too was calm with just a quiver of excitement in his voice. "These drawings are incomplete," he said. "I know we passed a service elevator on this floor and it is not on the plans."

"Let's go" said Alia, leading the way down the hallway. As they passed the main elevator, they noticed that the ground floor indicator light come on. "Not sure how fast the elevator is, but at least one of them will probably be up here in a few minutes," Alia remarked.

They found the elevator marked SERVICE at the end of the hallway just a few yards from the stairwell door. Alia ran to the stairwell door and opened it just a crack, paused and listened. She heard footsteps pounding up the stairwell.

"Here they come!" she said.

They both jumped into the service elevator and Will pushed the door-close button.

"We could take a chance and get off on the first, but if one of the men is there, they will have us cornered." said Will.

"In case they are trying to call this elevator, I can override the floor call buttons and take us directly to whichever floor we want to get off," Alia said as she speedily unscrewed the cover of the elevator control panel. "Hmm . . . it looks like there is one more floor available via a control that is hidden when the panel cover is on." She pointed to a small button labelled A.

"Let's check the plans," said Will, unrolling the plans and holding them up against the elevator wall.

The plans contained a detailed view of each floor viewed from above. On the plan for the first floor, dotted lines behind the building clearly indicated that a sewer system tunnel and utilities ran under the alley. There was one small view that showed each elevator shaft vertically. The main elevator stopped at each floor; however, the service elevator clearly descended below the first level to a level marked A

"That must be the alley – this elevator must go to the level of sewer and utilities under the alley," remarked Will.

Alia pushed the A button and began replacing the panel over the wiring to conceal the choice that they had made. The elevator descended rapidly. Both Alia and Will could feel the rapid rate of descent by the floating feeling in their stomachs. A minute passed.

"At the rate we are falling, we should be there any second," remarked Alia.

Another minute. Then another.

"My ears just popped," exclaimed Will. "No way your ears pop when going down only four floors. How far down IS this? Just then, the feeling in his stomach changed. He could feel the elevator rapidly decelerating, then stopping. Will pushed the door-open button and the door whispered open.

# Chapter 3. The Cave

Outside of the elevator, it was completely dark. Alia clicked on her penlight. As she dialed the beam open to maximum, the light danced across crudely cut stone walls. Both peered out. They were clearly at the beginning of a tunnel that had been cut into the bedrock.

"Must lead to the alley," said Will.

Alia led the way out of the elevator and the elevator doors closed behind them. The light from Alia's flashlight played across dark stone walls and a sandy floor. The ceiling curved and peaked about four feet over their heads. The air was cool and a fine film of moisture clung to the stone walls.

They had moved about fifteen feet down the tunnel when Will commented, "We should check the elevator indicator lights to see if anyone is following us down."

They turned back to look at the elevator doors. The doors had disappeared! Both Will and Alia were completely taken aback. Where the elevator had been, they saw the same rough-hewed stone that comprised the rest of the tunnel wall.

"No way!" exclaimed Alia, rushing back in the direction where the elevator door had been.

She looked closely at the wall hoping for some signs of a crack or hidden mechanism that would reopen the door. There was nothing but rough gray rock.

"Well," she said, pointing her flashlight down the tunnel toward the blackness. "I guess out is THAT way."

Will brought out his flashlight and clicked it on. Side by side they moved down the tunnel, the twin beams from their lights illuminating the firmly packed sand of the tunnel floor in front of them. As they walked, very slowly the tunnel began to open up. They kept close to the wall on their right and soon their flashlight beams no longer illuminated any wall on their left. After travelling for about 15 minutes, Alia halted.

"This just does not make sense," she said. "According to the map, we should have made it to the alley by now."

"I agree," said Will, nodding slowly as he considered their predicament. "Let's check the building plans." Will reached into his backpack and pulled out the plans and unfolded them on the floor of the tunnel. Alia shined her light down on the plans and they found the depiction of the service elevator in the building. "Look at this!" cried Alia, pointing to the small label for the stop on the lowest floor. The small label marked A had changed. Now the label read Alderwood and glowed a fluorescent green in the light of the flashlight.

Will felt a slight shock course through his body. "Alderwood?" he said, reaching into the pack for the leather bag that held the map they had just recovered. He removed the map from the bag and unfolded it. The details of the map showed in the light of the flashlight. The castle looked over large fields that led to woods and then mountains. There at the top of the map was the inscription that they had first seen written in script: The Kingdom of Alderwood now pulsed with the same green glow as the label on the building plans!

Will gulped. "The obvious explanation," he stated matter-of-factly, "is that somehow the elevator and this tunnel are part of someone's fantasy creation around Alderwood. The glowing lettering on the map and building plans probably have something to do with the different lighting coming from our flashlights."

Alia hesitated, considering Will's explanation, then nodded. "So let's follow this tunnel and see where it leads."

They replaced the map and building plans into Will's backpack, then started down the tunnel moving farther away from where they had exited the now hidden elevator. They had already lost sight of the left side wall of the tunnel. No longer a small tunnel, it had become more and more cave-like. They could still follow the right side wall and the sand floor had softened a bit. Still, it made for relatively easy walking. Occasionally, a stalagmite rose out of the floor and tapered until it met its accompanying stalactite, but these were well away from the right wall of the cave and not in their direct path. After about 15 minutes of walking, Alia halted. Will stopped too.

"I thought I saw a flicker of light ahead," Alia said. "I'm going to turn off my flashlight to see if we can see it. Maybe it is a way out."

Both of them snapped off their flashlights and strained to see the light. There! Not directly ahead, but angling off toward the left was a tiny pinprick of light. Alia clicked her flashlight back on and moved away from the wall, heading directly toward where they had seen the light. Will clicked on his flashlight and caught up. Moving in the direction they had seen the light, they maneuvered around several large stalagmites protruding up from the cave floor. Now they were in the middle of the chamber. Their lights shone on the floor and surrounding stalagmite protrusions but did not penetrate far enough to illuminate any side walls

Will noted, it was very dark in the cave. The thick blackness shrouded everything outside of the beam of their flashlights. Besides stalactites, occasionally boulders of various sizes appeared and the two altered their path to work their way around them. Alia, needing to reorient, turned off her flashlight. Will clicked his off too. The darkness slammed shut around them. In the cool moistness of the cave, it was impossible for Will even to see the tip of his nose much less his arms and hands in front of him or the figure of Alia standing right beside him.

Both Will and Alia strained to see the tiny light that had been guiding their way for some time now. Once they saw the light, they reoriented their direction of travel slightly left and they clicked their flashlights on again. They continued on, maneuvering around the stalagmites and boulders. Despite the geologic coolness of the cave, a slightly warmer breeze carried in from the direction of the light. Will thought, surely that must indicate an opening to outside, perhaps several hundred feet in the distance. The cave smelled like a cave – cool and dank with just the hint of - what was that weird smell? A musty odor of something old – like a few of the old buildings on the farm that once held animals but were no longer in use. But a new unfamiliar scent. Something different.

The beam from their flashlights began to pick up side walls. They could see that the huge room that they had been making their way through was coming to an end. The ceiling was now visible and appeared to be converging to meet the walls somewhere ahead.

Their lights picked up a large dark spot straight ahead - a doorway leading to what appeared to be another large chamber. The light ahead, though small, was now visible through the opening without turning off their flashlights. With only a moment's hesitation and no words spoken, both Alia and Will began to slowly move forward through the opening. They moved slowly through the doorway and the light ahead appeared just a tiny bit larger. Although it was still very dark, there was some illumination from very high up as though light from another source shone through an opening in the cave ceiling. Their lights caught a few waist-high boulders protruding from the sand directly in front of them several yards into the room. In the shadows to the left of the boulders was a significantly larger one.

There are times when there is not a moment to think, just act. Will had had those moments before and had ceased to question them. So, when up ahead he saw the beginnings of a flash of light, in that moment, he grabbed Alia's shirt and pulled her down and to one side behind the boulders on their right, diving into the sand floor next to her.

A huge flame roared across the cave floor where, only seconds before, Alia had been standing. The crisp scent of singed hair filled Will's nostrils.

"What the . . .?" exclaimed Alia. "Did you SEE that?"

"I was too busy yanking on you and diving for cover," replied Will. "What?"

"That large boulder on the left," Alia said as she slapped at a few smoldering bits of her shirt, "right before the flame came – it moved!"

"We need to figure this out," said Will thinking quickly. "First off, what is the source of that flame and is it moving toward us? I'm going to pop up for a second at this side of this boulder as a diversion while, at the same time, you look out from a low point on your side and see what you can see. Ready – on three. One two, THREE!"

Will popped up from his place on the left side of the boulder and crouched back down as quickly as he could. None too soon because a huge tongue of flame roared where seconds before his head and shoulders had been. At the same time, from down low on the right side of the boulder, Alia flashed her light and took a look.

"No way," she said, slapping herself lightly on the side of the head. "It can't be. It looked like a – a dragon!"

The last burst of flame had significantly increased the ambient air temperature by several degrees.

"We need to get back through the doorway," Will said, indicating the door in the stone wall behind them through which they had come.

Both Alia and Will looked back at the doorway. It was only a few yards away but, in light of the torrent of flames that had been aimed their way, it seemed very far. Just then another flame burst directly over their heads. They were shielded by the boulder but now the sands around them were starting to heat up.

"OK" said Will, his voice a strained whisper. "I am thinking that that thing needs a few seconds between flames. I am going to pop up on the side of the boulder away from the door. As soon as the burst of flame dies down, we both bolt for the doorway." Again at a whisper, he counted off, "One, Two, THREE!"

He was up and down in a flash. Again, the space where he had just been was filled with yellow flames as the fire roared over their heads. This time however, just as the flames faded, Alia and Will took three quick bounds to the doorway, both taking an involuntary glance over their shoulders toward the source of the flames. They threw themselves through the doorway and to either side of the roughhewed opening. The doorway filled with flames, but both of them were safely dug into the sand on the cave floor to either side of the doorway. In the mad dash back through the doorway, as they glanced in the direction from which the flames had come, both had seen. A dragon!

"We've got to move" said Will. "I'm not sure if he can fit through the doorway but his head surely can and if he finds us here, we're toast."

"It's a freakin' dragon!" said Alia, catching her breath and getting ready to sprint back toward where the elevator door had disappeared (if sprinting is possible using a small flashlight in a VERY dark cave). "I'm pretty sure the elevator didn't lead us to the sewer beneath the alley. Do you think this was one of the dangers Mr. Weldon forgot to mention?"

"Mr. Weldon? Do you know Mr. Weldon?

"Of course I know Mr. Weldon," replied Alia. "We just met him yesterday! And why does your voice sound funny?"

"I didn't say anything", said Will.

"But you just said . . . "

Alia's retort was cut off again.

"My apologies for the mistake, I did not know you were friends of Mr. Weldon." The voice was coming from the cave on the other side of the doorway.

"Well, why not?" remarked Will, "If it has to be a dragon, might as well be a talking dragon!"

Will carefully stuck his head into the doorway and peered into the next cave. This time his advance was not met by a ball of flames. Besides the small amount of light coming from the distant opening in the cave, a small circle of light showed down from an opening in the roof of the cave. The light played on the head and forelimbs of the dragon. A small stream ran in the cave floor in front of it.

The dragon was large. Pearlescent green scales covered a head and body that was fifty feet long. Including its coiled tail, the creature must have been at least eighty feet long. Its golden reptilian eyes looked directly at Will and, it looked . . . sad!

"No more fire," the dragon said. "I thought you must be part of the group of men who tricked me."

By now Alia too was carefully peering around the side of the doorway at the dragon. "I hear you but your lips aren't moving," she said. "How does that work?"

The dragon lifted his head off the floor of the cave. "Dragons do not speak like humans" the dragon replied. Our voice, as you call it, is projected from our brains to the hearing receptors in your ears. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Ramador, the last of the Alderwood dragons."

"I am Will and this is my sister, Alia," replied Will. "How do you know Mr. Weldon?"

"Mr. Weldon and his associate Mr. Nemscally are Watchers," replied the dragon. "Watchers are entrusted with monitoring the portals that allow beings to pass between worlds. It is the job of the Watchers to ensure that visitors from one world do not impede the civilizations or harm the lives of the world they visit." With that, he sighed and lowered his head back onto the cave floor.

Will could feel the sadness in this huge animal. Then he noticed the dragon's hind leg. A substantial black metal cuff encircled the leg. A large heavy chain attached to the cuff and was bolted into the wall of the cave.

"You are shackled to the wall," Will said.

"Yes," replied Ramador. "I was lured just inside the cave entrance by some of Craghorn's men. What appeared to be a feast contained drugged venison. When I awoke I was trapped inside the cave. The men said that if I told them where the Alderwood dragon treasure was kept, they would let me go. I am not so foolish. I know that once they obtained the treasure, they would kill me."

"How long have you been here?" asked Alia.

"It has been six months with very little food," sighed Ramador. "Just enough to keep me alive. As I mentioned, I am the last dragon of Alderwood. For many years, dragons lived off of wild game and were hardly ever seen by men. As the towns in the kingdom expanded, however, the lives of dragons and men intersected more and more. The sheep and cattle that men raised were too delicious a prize for some dragons to resist. In addition, men began to resent all the wild game in the forest that dragons consumed. For a time, it looked like dragons and men would go to war. Just when war seemed imminent, a greater danger arose. The Mordlocks came. Deep in the forest, from the side of the mountain, a new portal opened, and soldiers began to pour through from Mordomum, the Mordlock world. The portal was one that even the Watchers had not charted. Initially, small bands of Mordlocks ventured through the portal and preyed on villages and travelers. In the towns of Alderwood, they seized any goods they found and any man, woman or child that they encountered. It seemed that more and more bands of Mordlocks were coming through the portal. These were creatures that men had never seen before - twice the size of men, but with wolf-like ears and faces. They were strong and fierce and loved to fight. The knights had their hands full protecting villages from the bands of raiding Mordlocks, but over time, the small bands of Mordlocks united into a small army. Then the Watchers found out that Mordlocks were mustering a larger army on the other side of the portal. It was apparent that they were massing to take over the kingdom of Alderwood. While the knights could overcome the small groups of Mordlocks, they would not be able to defend against a whole army. It was clear that the portal must be sealed before the larger army of Mordlocks could come through and join the smaller Mordlock army already assembled in the woods and that the only way to defeat them was for dragons and men to fight together.

"Couldn't the Watchers help?" Interrupted Alia.

"There are not enough Watchers that would help in a battle" replied the dragon. "Although they do have arms and other helpful devices that they can move through portals, they really had nothing that could defeat a Mordlock army. A great battle took place on the plain in front of Alderwood castle. The Mordlocks were driven back through the woods and through the door from which they had entered. Mr. Nemscally sealed the door with a spell and laid another spell on the surrounding area so that, without exact directions, it was impossible to even find the doorway. Once the spell was cast, even Mr. Nemscally and I could not locate the doorway.

In the aftermath of the battle, dragons held a council and decided, in order to keep peace, it would be best to leave and search for other lands not so inhabited by men. Knights could manage to mop up any Mordlocks left in Alderwood that had not escaped through the portal. That was fifty years ago. A few smaller bands of Mordlocks were initially caught and killed, then nothing. Since then, Benjamin Godfrey succeeded his father as king and maintained a watchful alert for any signs of Mordlocks. Then a year ago, the king disappeared. Some of the knights began scouring throughout the kingdom in search of him. The queen remained with Craghorn Speth as her advisor. After my capture, I heard one of the men mention Craghorn's name. It appeared that Craghorn had ordered my capture. This is very odd as Craghorn has been the king and queen's trusted advisor for years. I fear that this is all somehow related to the sealed doorway in the mountain. I had been flying throughout the kingdom hoping to catch a glimpse of the king while keeping an eye out in case the portal has reopened. Now I think I should travel to find my dragon brothers and report what has happened."

"Then, let's get you loose" said Alia as she and Will moved over to the large manacle that was fastened around the dragon's hind leg.

The manacle was made out of a smooth black metal. It completely circled the dragon's leg. There was no seam or apparent way to open it. Likewise, the chain flowed from the cave floor to a loop in the manacle with no obvious way to separate it from the manacle.

"As you can see," said Ramador, "the manacle is seamless. I have tried everything I can think of and it remains not even slightly damaged. I am certain that it is sealed with magic."

MAGIC? Exclaimed both Alia and Will.

"Yes," explained Ramador. "Magic has been outlawed in the kingdom of Alderwood since the battle with the Mordlocks. But it is still used by some and I recognize its use here. The manacle can only be opened with a counter spell. Would either of you by chance have a counter spell?"

No sooner had he spoken than Will's pack, which he had set down during their brief conversation, began to glow as if someone had turned on a light inside it. Alia and Will both stared at the glowing pack.

Alia tossed the pack to Will.

"Your pack, you look."

Will cautiously unbuckled the straps of the pack. As he peered into the pack, he noticed that the glow was coming from one corner of the leather bag that held the map. He untied the thong that held the map bag closed and turned the bag upside down to dump out the rolled-up map. The map slid partially from the bag. But a small book fell completely out. Will noticed that the lettering on the cover of the book was the source of the glow, which stopped as soon as the book dropped from the bag. The title inscribed on the book cover read: Charms and Incantations.

"That's odd," remarked Alia, looking down at the leather-bound book as it lay where it dropped on the sandy floor of the cave, "there's nothing written on the outside."

Will frowned at his sister, "What do you mean? It says Charms and Incantations." He picked up the book and held it so that the cover was directly facing Alia, "See?"

"There's nothing there," said Alia, becoming a little exasperated.

"Ahem," Ramador cleared his throat softly (softly for him, but his deep voice created a low rumble in the ears of both Will and Alia).

The attention of the two was redirected toward their new acquaintance.

"Perhaps I can help here," he said. "On Alderwood, magic can only be performed by certain people. It is a skill one is born with, not one that is acquired. The magic books of Alderwood, banned now for years along with the practice, were hidden in plain sight. All magic books appear to be something else \- either completely different books or empty books."

Indeed, as Alia looked closer, the book appeared to her to be an ordinary bound notebook. And the pages of the book, to Alia, appeared to be blank. "This is so cool!" exclaimed Alia, "You can read magic. Maybe you can do magic!"

"Careful," interrupted Ramador, "although it is most probable that master Will can do magic, magic is a skill that is honed by practice. In any case, it is not meant to be used for everyday circumstances. Its misuse was one of the reasons it was banned in Alderwood."

"OK, I'll be careful" said Will, still a bit dazed at the new discovery. Slowly, and perhaps a bit too cautiously, he paged through the book. "Here's one called 'UNDO'," he said. "It looks like it cancels any existing charm, spell or incantation."

"Sounds good," exclaimed Alia. "Give it a try."

Will read the words carefully. " _Ramal versus exclamador_."

Nothing. The manacle remained firmly clasped on Ramador's leg.

"Maybe you need to put more oomph in it" exclaimed Alia. "Say it like you mean it."

" _RAMAL VERSUS EXCLAMADOR_!" cried Will (this time saying it like he meant it).

Nothing.

"This is frustrating." exclaimed Will, putting his hand on the manacle. "I am saying the words _ramal versus exclamador_ EXACTLY as they are written but nothing is happening."

Precisely as he finished uttering the words of the incantation, and before he could finish his complaint, the manacle glowed briefly then opened and slid from the dragon's leg. Both Alia and Will jumped back startled.

"Humph" sighed Will. "Why did it work that time? The only difference was . . ."

"Touch!" both exclaimed simultaneously as the realization hit them.

"In any case, I am free and owe you my gratitude," said Ramador, rubbing the spot where the manacle had encircled his leg for the last six months. Free of the manacle and short chain that had kept him rooted to the small area, he stood up and stretched. Only then could Alia and Will truly appreciate what a magnificent specimen of dragon Ramador was. Even after months in the cave, his green scales rippled and sparkled in the dim light. They could see the power in his huge wings as they partially unfurled as he continued stretching.

Ramador reached over into a nearby fire pit and grasped a small half-burnt branch about six inches long. With one of his fore claws, he carved a series of lines that spiraled down the branch from one end to the other. The parallel lines cut through the blackened wood appeared almost white, reflecting the exposed new wood beneath the bark. He then carved a small hole through the stick at one end. When he was done carving, he held the branch in front of him and, facing away from Alia and Will, breathed a small (but still intense) breath of fire followed by a long slow breath unaccompanied by fire, which served to remove any ash from the outside of the branch. The result was that the branch was completely blackened with a soft burnished smoothness along its entire outside and highlighted by a dozen delicately cut parallel lines that spiraled from one end to the other. He held the completed object out to Will.

"This is a dragon whistle. If you tie a cord through this hole at the end and swing the whistle rapidly over your head, it will generate a sound that I can hear no matter how far away I am. If you continue on this journey, this will keep us connected. If you use this, it means that you are in deep trouble and need assistance. I will come."

He handed the dragon whistle to Will, then turned and began to make his way toward the opening at the far end of the cave. Will and Alia followed. As they exited the cave, they could see that they had come out about one third of the way up a mountain. Above them the craggy black mountain rose several hundred yards to the peak. They had come out on a ledge broad enough to have ample room for the dragon and both Will and Alia. From their vantage point, they could see that the mountain range continued both to their left and to their right with the huge green forest coming right to the mountain base. Far off in the distance, they could see the spires of . . . a castle! About a hundred yards below, was a small meadow in a clearing. A path led down from the ledge to the clearing.

"A road leads from that meadow to the castle," said Ramador. "And here, I must say good-bye. I will travel in search of my dragon brothers. We need a council to determine what is known and what to do. Good-bye my new friends."

With that, he leapt from the ledge. His powerful wings unfurled and flapped, carrying him rapidly upward and away. He was soon just a tiny dot flying over the mountain tops. Gazing into the distance at the disappearing dragon, Alia's sharp eyes were suddenly attracted to something else flying that swiftly came to rest high up in a nearby pine.

"Did you see that?" she remarked to Will. "That looks like a small hawk that just landed up on that branch. And it's watching us!"

"I see it - it's staring right at us," agreed Will.

The two could see what appeared to be a small sparrow hawk perched midway up a tall pine tree. He cocked his head as he scanned down on them (for it was a he as we will find out much later). He seemed to look at them carefully for a full minute then turned away and took off, swiftly disappearing above the trees.

Alia and Will were alone again in the dawn, on a mountain looking down at miles of forest.

"Whew," said Alia. "Do you believe that? Hard to believe two minutes ago we were talking to a dragon. And we are supposed to be in some other world? The kingdom of Alderwood?" She looked at Will who was staring into the sky with his mouth partly open. "Earth to Will" Alia said. "Daydreaming already."

"No" said Will his voice a whisper and his eyes never leaving the sky. "I believe it. Look, it's just like on the map."

He pointed just above the horizon. There in the clear blue sky, hung two moons. Both Alia and Will stared at the moons for a few minutes.

Finally, Alia turned to Will and said, "Well, I guess that proves it. It looks just like the map. Somehow we've made our way to a completely different world. And that castle must be the castle of Alderwood. Now what?"

"The way I see it," said Will, "we have two choices. We can go back through the cave to where the elevator was and see if there is something in the magic book that will help us to figure out how to open the door or we can continue on with this trip and head toward the castle."

"The job's not finished," said Alia. "We have the map but not the crystal. So, I think we should continue."

"Let's do it," said Will smiling at his sister in agreement. As he spoke, there was a slight rustling in the trees and the wind past the ledge stiffened for a minute. Will felt a slight chill, then the breeze stopped. Or was blocked. He looked down at himself then at Alia doing the same – looking first at herself then Will. Their clothing had changed! Their more modern shirts and shorts had changed to simple coarser cloth garments covered by a leather tunic.

"Magic!" marveled Will.

"I guess then we're all set," smiled Alia.

They both turned toward the castle in the distance. Will slapped Alia on the back as he began the descent down the trail to the meadow. Alia returned the favor with a fist-shot to Will's shoulder as, with more-than-a-little excitement, they began their trek toward Alderwood castle.

# Chapter 4. Meeting Strangers

They made their way down the rocky path cut into the mountain to the meadow below. From there, they had a clear view of a trail that led out of the meadow. They had only followed the trail for a half mile or so when they intersected a small road. The road was hard-packed dirt with some evidence of use by horses and wagons. Will marveled to himself at the tracks – this world was indeed set back in time if the mode of travel was horses and wagons. He wondered what sort of time this was. The pair set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the castle that they had viewed from up on the mountain. As they walked, they began to appreciate the surrounding countryside. The air was cool with a slight breeze blowing from the direction they were heading. The breeze carried the soft scent of the surrounding pine forest while the sounds of birds and small animals kept them company. A few fluffy white clouds lay scattered about in a bright blue sky. As the sun rose higher, it removed any of the cooling effects of the cave through which they had come. After a few hours of steady walking, they began to feel thirsty. As they listened, they could hear a small stream flowing just yards from the road. They paused to rest and take a drink.

"This is almost like hiking at home" said Alia as she knelt to drink.

All at once, the sound of voices from somewhere up ahead reached them.

"Sounds like someone in trouble," said Alia, cutting through the brush and heading toward the sounds. Will caught up to Alia who was peering through some bushes at several people arguing ahead in the middle of the road. Three rather large men surrounded a tall middle-aged man in a deep red cloak. The three large men looked similar. They were tall and wide shouldered with relatively longish noses giving them a wolf-like appearance. Each was clothed in a gray tunic made of coarse cloth. Over the tunic each wore a leather fur-lined cloak. Each had on trousers with a large black leather belt at the waist. Their legs were covered by crisscrossed leather leggings leading to tall black leather boots. One man held a dagger pointed toward the tall man in the red cloak. The others each held a long stout staff. A second man, with snow white hair, clearly a companion of the man in the red cloak, struggled while being restrained by a fourth man. The white-haired man shouted, "leave him alone" as two of the men grabbed the tall man and pinned his arms to his sides.

The man holding the dagger laughed cruelly. "Now, where is the key? We will also have that fine cloak. You will not be needing it where you are going. Our master's order is that it is time for you to die!"

The tall man in the red cloak seemed a bit dazed and confused. With an unsteady voice he replied, "Key? I do not know of what key you are speaking."

Two of the men tore the cloak from the tall man and again pinned his arms at his sides while the man holding the dagger began to close in.

"I've seen enough," said Alia, grabbing a stout tree branch on the ground next to her and starting to move through the brush toward the commotion.

"Wait," said Will. "Let's see if the magic book can help. its four to two and they all have staffs."

Quickly, he paged through the magic book. "Here's one," he said, touching Alia's branch and pronouncing " _Converta armo._ "

No sooner were the words out than the stick in Alia's hand became a sword. Alia smiled. Having been an experienced fencer at Farmstead, she was happy to trade the stick for a more useful weapon.

"That's more like it," she said as he stepped from the brush onto the road and headed toward the men. Will held back as he paged quickly through the magic book. He stopped on one page and smiled to himself.

Alia stopped just outside the circle of men and announced in a loud voice "That will do."

The man holding the dagger was startled and stopped, turned, and looked at Alia standing there holding her sword comfortably in front of her.

"That be an impressive sword for a young woman," scowled the man holding the dagger. He sheathed his dagger and bent down picking up a rather large staff. "But we be four and large staffs have we!"

With that he lunged at Alia, swinging his large staff overhead and bringing it down where Alia stood. Except that Alia was no longer there. In the second that the man had advanced and swung, Alia had moved slightly to one side. Only her sword blade remained directly in the path of the descending staff. The blade met the staff, which was coming down swiftly bearing the weight of the man behind it. And the staff split neatly in half! The large man staggered back in surprise. The man holding the old man off to one side let go and joined the other two men who had ceased restraining the tall man and were now closing in on Alia. Each man appeared to be experienced with his staff and though wary, each appeared eager to land a blow. A smile crept across their faces as they continued to circle looking for a chance to strike. Alia began to sense that, although she had the advantage of this wonderful sword, perhaps three large and muscular men with staffs and only too happy to demonstrate their abilities, just might be her match.

Where was Will anyway Alia thought. She could use him. Three to two were much better odds. Almost in answer to her question, she noticed something truly odd. A small log appeared to be dragging itself behind one of the men! Suddenly, it rolled between the man's feet and the man went down. Alia wasted no time and swung her sword at the protruding staff of one of the two men still standing, slicing it quickly in two. She glanced at the man who had stumbled on the log. Now a piece of the man's staff appeared to be beating him! Alia faced the remaining man holding a staff. The man was staring at the sight of his downed comrade being beaten by his own staff. He dropped his staff and turned and ran. The two men whose staffs had been halved by Alia's sword, likewise turned and ran. Meanwhile, the staff beating the downed man halted and hung in the air. The man hastily scrambled to his feet and followed his companions disappearing around a bend in the road. By this time, Alia was also staring at the staff hanging in midair.

In a few seconds, she heard " _Reappero_!" and Will appeared holding the staff.

"That magic book is FULL of useful spells," laughed Will. Then he stated the obvious, "I made myself invisible."

"Works for me," smiled Alia. "I was having a bit of trouble figuring out which one to take on first."

Then they turned to the two older men who they had just extricated from assault. The man who had been under attack had retrieved his cloak. He had brown longish hair that hung in disarray and a small unkempt beard. From its tailoring and faded colors, they could tell that his clothing, at one time had obviously been very fine. His short tunic was open at the neck and Will could see that there was a striped blue and white ribbon hanging around his neck from which something hung against his chest under the tunic. He stood erect and was taller than the other man, but his brown eyes were squinted and slightly cloudy. An air of confusion was about him.

"We were travelling and those men were strangers, yet they certainly meant us harm," he said, still somewhat dazed. Abruptly, he stopped speaking and his gaze wandered to the forest. He frowned, fumbling to regain his train of thought. Then he looked at them again and mumbled "Thank you." But as he spoke, his gaze remained distant.

"Thank you for interceding," the older, white-haired man said as he moved to meet them. Unlike the younger brown-haired man, his blue eyes were clear and his voice crisp. His snow-white hair covered his ears and his face was partially covered by a neatly trimmed mustache and beard. He wore a robe of deep blue that was cinched at the waist by a small silver rope. A hood hung from the back of the robe. He moved a small distance from the brown-haired man, taking Alia and Will with him.

"We are usually quite careful, but those men surprised us. My name is Alfred and that is Ben. As you can see, Ben is not himself. We are travelling in search of a rare mushroom that I need to cure Ben's illness." From within his robe, he pulled out a small piece of parchment paper. On it was a sketch of a blue mushroom next to an acorn for size reference. The mushroom had distinctive black dots on the cap, which was about half the size of the acorn. "This small mushroom only comes out in the woods at certain times and under certain conditions," he said. "It is very powerful medicine and is the only thing that can restore Ben to his former good health."

"How did this happen?" asked Alia.

"I am not sure" replied Alfred. "It is a rare malady that has been attributed in lore to magic spells. However, I am a physician, not someone who does magic and I know that the blue mushroom will cure this ill regardless of the cause."

"Maybe we can help," said Will. "We are travelling to the castle and would be happy to look for your herb with you along the way."

"Alas, no thank you," said Alfred. "Our journey started at the castle and we have searched from there to here. We will continue to expand our search farther away. We will be more careful."

With that, he gently grasped Ben's elbow and led him down the path and into the woods. In a few minutes, Alia and Will could no longer see the two gentlemen and were again alone on the trail.

"Odd," said Alia, "Alfred seemed in a bit of a hurry to move on. He was nice enough but really didn't seem to want to chat at all."

"I know that this is a different sort of place," replied Will. "But isn't it sort of odd for a physician to be out wandering around with his patient for a cure?"

"I thought so too," agreed Alia. "There is something more going on here than meets the eye."

"And did you notice their clothing, especially Ben's?" remarked Will. "It was worn, but it looked like it was quite expensive at one time. When Ben first spoke, he sounded very educated, but then he just faded. What kind of illness makes you like that, I wonder?"

"None that I ever heard of"' replied Alia. "If we knew what to look for, you could try to find a cure in the book. Speaking of the book," she continued, "that disappearing was a neat trick."

"Yes," replied Will. "I was lucky to find it. I need to spend some time going through that book. There are more than a hundred charms and incantations, or whatever you want to call them, in there. Maybe when we settle down tonight I will take some time."

"Well, until then, it looks like we can still make some distance toward the castle before night," replied Alia. "Let's go."

With that, Alia and Will shouldered their packs and began again to make their way down the trail towards the castle.

They walked for several hours, enjoying the pine-scented breeze and the sight of the castle in the distance. After a while, they noticed the sun beginning to set in an orange-tinted sky. The setting sun still warmed the forest air but shadows had begun to lengthen among the deep green forest pines and there was a pleasant coolness near the trees. Alia and Will moved a little way off the trail and found a place to settle in next to a nearby stream. They rummaged in their packs and found the few snacks and water that they carried. They divided up the food and sat to eat in the soft natural mulch beneath the tall trees. The food was gone too soon.

"It looks like we are going to have to find some food tomorrow," Alia remarked. "The castle looks like it is over a day away and we are going to need to keep up our energy levels especially if we're going to have any more encounters with large men looking to pummel the daylights out of us."

"Maybe we could snare a rabbit or something and cook it," mused Will.

"Yea, right," responded Alia, wincing slightly. "In the first place, do you know how to catch anything?"

"Hmm," sighed Will. "You're right. It sounds good in theory, but neither of us knows what we are doing in the area of catching living food. Hey, I wonder what the magic book has to say about catching food."

With that, he reached into his pack and pulled out the book. He turned on his headlamp and began to turn the pages. After a few minutes, he looked up grinning. "It's all here, theory and practice," he said. "Watch this." He reached over and picked up a small tree branch that was lying on the ground. "This says," he noted while reading aloud from the book, "Food does not come from nothing; however, most objects can be turned into food." He held tree branch at arm's length and recited, "Ho Arum Gustavum."

In a twinkling, the branch became a small platter of meat, cheese, and bread. Enough for both of them.

"Whoa," responded Alia. "That is awesome! It looks like we don't need to learn to trap, kill, and cook. We just order up from the magic book!"

In short order, the two had consumed the contents of the platter and their stomachs were satisfied.

"This has been a long day," said Alia as she stretched and yawned. "I need to get some rest."

She began to clear a small area for them to lie down for the night. There were lots of relatively soft pine needles scattered about so they began to pick up small handfuls to pile in their lie-down area. (Of course, pine needles are not so soft as a mattress that you or I would fall asleep on, but this is the forest! So soft enough compared with hard earth and rocks and fallen trees.) Will scraped up a large handful of needles that was lying near the stream. A small bright flash of color on the earth beneath where the needles had been grabbed his attention.

"Alia, look!" he said, pointing to the small colorful objects sprouting from the ground.

Alia trotted over and looked. A very large smile blossomed over her face as she looked first at the ground and then at Will.

"We've found the mushrooms!" she cried.

There, on the ground that had been hidden by the pine needles, grew three tiny blue mushrooms with distinctive black spots on their caps.

"I am going to harvest these," said Will. "We can keep them until we run into Alfred and Ben. Then Alfred can make the medicine he needs for Ben."

"But they said they were going in the opposite direction from where we are going," noted Alia. "Surely they couldn't have gone far," said Will. "It's too dark to look for them now, but in the morning, we can try to catch up to them."

They finished gathering the long pine needles and placed them in the lie-down area. Using their packs for pillows, they were soon fast asleep.

# Chapter 5. Sir Nigel

Normally, waking in the woods as the sun comes up with the sweet smell of pines in the air and the sound of a nearby babbling brook to greet you would be just about the perfect start to any day. However, the addition of cold steel pressed firmly against your neck would significantly subtract from the refreshing woodsy environment. Alia and Will awoke surrounded by some familiar faces accompanied by more unfamiliar faces and this time it was swords in the hands of their visitors, not wooden cudgels. Four large men, dressed in light armor and chain mail, surrounded Alia and Will as they awoke in the aforementioned woodsy encampment. Each man held a sword and two of them had their swords placed firmly against the necks of Alia and Will. Behind the new foursome, looking over their shoulders and grinning with anticipation were the four large roughly dressed men who Alia and Will had encountered (and bested) the previous day.

"Get up," said the man who had his sword on Will's neck. "Slowly, and do not try any tricks."

"You're right, it's too early for tricks," mumbled Will struggling to waken and slowly rising to his feet. Alia too was barely awake but already looking for a way to reverse their situation.

"Have you seen our friends?" she asked.

"Ha! The old men?" said one of the four from the day before. "They've disappeared, but we will find them next, and soon. And then we will deal with the lot of you. We've torvaks to feed and they love fresh human meat."

"Torvaks, aye," said Will, doing his best to pretend that he knew what in heaven's name a torvak was and was not at all concerned with being its next meal. "Let's not keep the torvaks waiting," he continued, sidling over toward Alia.

"Not so fast," interrupted the man with the sword to his neck. "If you try your disappearing trick, the first thing I will do is start slicing the air around you while my partner skewers your friend."

Before Will even had time to reassess the situation, the men quickly placed iron shackles on the wrists of both him and Alia. The shackles had no lock mechanism but appeared to be similar to the much larger cuff that had bound Ramador. The men then looped a thick rope around chain that ran between the shackles. Each rope was held by one of the men they had met the previous day. As their captors were preparing to march them down the road, Will noticed a gray hawk land in a pine tree high over the group. She appeared to look down directly at them. Will glanced at Alia. A spark of interest flickered in her eyes. She too had seen the hawk.

In short order, the men and their prisoners were marching back down the road that Alia and Will had traveled and away from the castle. In a few hours, the group reached a fork in the road. One of the armored men was a particularly nasty looking individual with a large scar that ran from his right eye diagonally across his face to the left side of his chin. He appeared to be the group's leader and he spoke with authority.

"We will rest here briefly, while some of us go look for the old men at the hut that we located yesterday. If we can surprise them, then we will have four to feed to the torvaks," he smirked.

The ropes that led from the chains binding Alia and Will were tied to a large tree, leaving them securely bound, but now close enough to communicate with each other at a whisper.

"Look," said Alia flicking her glance to the hawk perched high in a nearby pine tree. "That's the second hawk that seemed interested in us. Remember the sparrow hawk from the other day?"

"Curious," replied Will. "But I am more concerned with getting out of this particular jam.

"Remember yesterday's spells?" whispered Alia, looking at the ground and not at Will. "My thoughts, exactly" replied Will.

"HEY THERE! NO TALKING!" cried the scar-faced leader. He drew his sword and took a few steps toward Alia and Will while pointing with his sword. "If I hear another word, you will do without your ears! And that's not all . . ." But further threats were interrupted by sounds coming from farther up the main road.

A deep male voice was singing! "Coming from adventures far away to the sweet forests of Alderwood." A slight pause then the voice continued, "It's been a long time since we stood - in the sweet forests of Alderwood".

Prisoners' and captors' attention was drawn to the road as around the corner rode a knight on a rather large white charger. Perhaps rode is too precise a term for how the knight sat on the charger. The knight swayed alarmingly to and fro as he sang while at the same time lifting a bottle to his lips and pouring its contents into his mouth. In fact, it was hard to believe that his rocking did not result in a fall at the either end of the to or the fro. Perhaps the fact that he was fully armored kept him seated in the rather large saddle of the rather impressive charger. His helmet was on, though the visor was fully raised in order that he could pour the contents of the bottle down his throat without much interference. When he wasn't singing, of course. Trailing a few yards behind him was a teenage boy, his squire, leading a fully loaded pack horse. As the charger neared the captives and their captors, it came to a halt. The knight suddenly became aware of the group in the road and tilted back in surprise. In fact, for a second, Will thought that he would surely fall backward from the saddle so far backward did his surprised reaction carry him. But at the last minute, he righted himself.

"What have we here?" He beamed. "Hail gentlemen and fellow travelers of Alderwood!" He spoke directly to the leader of the eight men. He did not seem to take notice that Alia and Will were manacled and tied to a tree only a few feet to the side of the road. The leader of the captors looked at his crew and back at the knight. He appeared to be doing a calculation. The knight was armed and armored but appeared barely to be able to sit in his saddle. Surely no match for eight men. Charger, saddle, armor and what appeared to be a fully loaded pack horse would be quite a haul. Decision made, he nodded almost imperceptibly to his men. He smiled and opened his arms.

"Hail knight, fellow traveler," he spoke as he began closing the distance to the knight. At the same time, the other men in his group slowly began to surround the knight and the squire. But the squire noticed the men slowly advancing and began to look uncomfortable.

"Sir Nigel," he addressed the knight, his voice trembling a little as now he noticed Alia and Will fastened to a tree. But the knight - now we know he is Sir Nigel - appeared unperturbed, though he sat slightly taller in his saddle.

"Nay, young Brian," he said to his squire, "our new friends approach us in greeting." And he smiled even more, apparently oblivious to the increasingly predatory looks from the eight men as they surrounded both the knight and his squire.

From his position tied to the tree, Will noticed something that none of the would-be robbers slowly surrounding the knight noticed ere they would have been a bit more cautious. For Sir Nigel's right hand now rested lightly on his sheathed sword and he no longer tilted to and fro in his saddle. His charger too appeared to have sensed that something was up. It stopped moving forward and stood still with its ears forward as it watched the scar-faced leader of the band of robbers approach to within a few yards. "Here we go" whispered Will to Alia.

Several things happened in rapid succession. Without raising his voice, Will grabbed Alia's chains and whispered " _Ramal versus exclamador_ ". Instantly the shackles that had been clasped firmly around their wrists dropped from both Alia and Will.

At the same time, the leader of the robber band made a quick step and reached to grab the bridle of the charger as he shouted "Now! Take him men!" And the men who had circled the knight and his squire all leapt for the knight to pull him off his steed.

Now, although this band of robbers was both experienced and deadly, as it turns out, they were no match for Sir Nigel and his steed. The hand of the scar-faced leader never touched the charger's bridle. This was a well-trained charger and one not likely to let an enemy grab any part of its tack. The hand was met by the charger's teeth and the crack of finger bones snapping could be heard by all. As swiftly as the horse struck the leader in front, it wheeled in a circle. Even as the horse had been striking the first attacker, Sir Nigel's sword was out, so that, as the horse wheeled, the charging men were met by the sharp blade of a broadsword slicing through the air, scarcely pausing as it sliced through an outstretched hand.

Quickly the thieves realized that, if their plan was simply to pull the knight down from his charger, they had lost the element of surprise. But there were seven of them (their leader's hand having been crippled by the charger's teeth) and they promptly drew swords and cudgels and attacked the mounted knight. Alia and Will grabbed long wooden cudgels lying nearby to rush to aid Sir Nigel, but it was not Sir Nigel that needed aiding. Even as the two were closing the distance from where they had been chained to where the thieves surrounded the knight, another change was taking place. One minute the gray hawk in the tree was looking down at the incipient fight when, in the blink of an eye, the hawk was no longer there but in her place sat a gray-hooded woman with a bow fully drawn and an arrow targeted on the thieves. It happened in a flash. The charger and his mounted knight were a whirling white and shining silver blur with the charger striking out with both fore- and hind-feet and the knight easily meeting blades thrust in their direction, parrying and delivering mortal blows in return. Arrows flew from the gray-caped archer, piercing even the armor of the uniformed soldiers. It was over before either Alia or Will could join the fight. All eight men lay dead.

And even then, the mysterious happenings were not over. No sooner had the men collapsed and died that their bodies began to change. Though still dead, their forms changed to something not so manlike. Their bodies doubled in size and even as their bodies grew their facial features changed to elongated lips and noses. Their ears were pointed. Their facial features were almost wolf-like. Alia and Will recognized the description given by the dragon even as the knight, Sir Nigel cried out, "Mordlocks!" And as quickly as they had changed, the eight bodies turned to ash and crumbled, leaving only small piles of black ashes where each had fallen.

As Alia and Will walked the final few yards to where Sir Nigel calmly sat his horse, Brian, Sir Nigel's squire, dropped down from a low hanging branch that he had somehow managed to scramble to when the men rushed Sir Nigel. The white charger calmly faced Alia and Will. Sir Nigel, whose visor had snapped shut at the beginning of the fight, raised his visor and looked down on the two.

"Such a commotion," he said, a small smile flashing briefly across his mustached face.

"What happened to the Mordlocks?" asked Will.

"What happened is what always happens to dead Mordlocks," replied Sir Nigel. "They quickly turn to ash. Allow me to introduce my party," he continued as though Mordlocks dissolving to ash was a rather boring occurrence. "The fair archer is lady Gwendolmyr. To my delight, she also happens to be my spouse," remarked Nigel pointing to the gray-caped archer who still rested on a large upper branch of one of the nearby pines. The archer reached up and, grasping the top of her hood, pulled it back.

Will and Alia were stunned. For the description by Nigel of "fair archer" besides being an underestimation of the accuracy of her shooting, did nothing to prepare them for the beauty that was revealed when the lady lowered her hood. Lady Gwendolmyr looked down on them with a slight smile. Her eyes were garnet green and her long chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her lightly tanned face resembled nothing of a bird but was oval and her features so perfectly proportioned that Will and even Alia were stunned by her quiet beauty.

"I am glad to meet both of you," she remarked her eyes sparkling as her smile widened slightly.

Nigel continued "This trusty charger is Abacus, and I am Nigel Gulthorn, knight of the court of King Godfrey of Alderwood, and my squire is called Brian." With that he stepped down from his horse.

Will stepped forward. "Sir Nigel," he began.

"Please, Nigel will do. The 'Sir' is reserved for more formal circumstances and, he glanced back toward Brian, for addressing by my squire."

"Nigel, then" said Will. I am Will Barclay and this is my partner and sister, Alia. "And we owe you for freeing us from our captors."

"Though you probably are in trouble with some hungry torvaks," noted Alia.

"Torvaks!" exclaimed Sir Nigel, "there haven't been torvaks in these woods for decades. And Mordlocks appearing in the uniforms of the king's soldiers! King's solders do not tie up travelers and certainly do not try to rob King's knights. We have been gone for more than a year travelling at the far reaches of the kingdom looking into reports of solitary Mordlocks causing destruction. When a month ago we learned that the king had disappeared, we began our journey back to the castle as speedily as possible. Now we find that Mordlocks are within a day's ride of the castle. Surely this does not bode well."

Will continued with his introduction, "Alia and I are new to this kingdom and are on our way to the castle in search of an object stolen from our country. We stopped to help an old man and his companion yesterday who were set on by some bandits. This morning those bandits returned and they brought reinforcements."

"Alderwood is vast, but is surrounded by mountains," said Sir Nigel looking a bit perplexed. "I am familiar with the far limits of the kingdom and there are no adjoining kingdoms save what might be on the other side of the mountains. Where is this country that you say you have come from and how did you get here?"

Will glanced at Alia and they nodded to each other in agreement – trusting Sir Nigel with the truth was the only way to proceed.

"Our trip has been a strange one," said Will. "One minute we were in our country and a very short time later we were in a cave that opened up in Alderwood."

"You have travelled through a portal" exclaimed Sir Nigel. "They are rumored to exist in Alderwood, but the last known mountain portal was sealed years ago after the battle with the Mordlocks. There must be another one connected to your world. May I ask what object was stolen?"

Again a quick glance passed between Will and Alia with Alia nodding to Will – they were in agreement not to withhold information from Sir Nigel.

"Two items were stolen," said Will "a crystal and a map. We recovered the map, but the crystal was gone."

Sir Nigel paled slightly even as his squire, Brian, let out a gasp.

"Surely something is afoot," said Sir Nigel. "Those could only be the guiding crystal and the map to the mountain portal entrusted to the Watchers. Used together, they would allow one to find the keyhole to the door of the mountain portal. Once the keyhole is illuminated, one would only need the key to reopen the portal to the Mordlock kingdom. Dragons and men combined barely beat back the Mordlocks in the previous encounter. Now that dragons are scattered far and wide and gone from the kingdom of Alderwood, the Mordlocks would make short work of the people of Alderwood. It is crucial that we return to the castle to rally the knights and make sure that the key is secure."

"Where is the key kept?" asked Alia.

"It is always kept in the treasury tower under additional lock and key," replied Sir Nigel. "Even then, there are always at least two of the king's guards at the door at the base of the tower. Also, the King himself regularly checks on the key."

"Sounds pretty secure," said Alia.

"But the fact that several of your captors were Mordlocks in the form of king's guards gives me pause," said Sir Nigel. "We must get to the castle as soon as possible to evaluate the situation."

"Can we travel together?" asked Will.

"By all means," replied Sir Nigel. "Lady Gwen will travel on ahead to the castle to gather information."

Even as he spoke, the beautiful archer had once more transformed herself to a gray hawk and, leaping skyward from her branch, launched herself in the direction of the castle. In a few seconds, she was a tiny speck heading toward the distant castle.

Alia and Will gathered their packs and possessions feeling slightly amazed. They were starting to get accustomed to being surrounded by magical things. In less than a day they had spoken to a dragon, begun to practice magic, seen wolf-like creatures dissolve into ash, and now seen a beautiful woman who was a bird. Or was the beautiful bird a woman? No matter. In a few minutes they were packed up and ready and the troupe was back on the trail and headed for the castle visible in the distance.

# Chapter 6. Preparing for the Tournament

With a mounted Sir Nigel in the lead, Will and Alia fell in with Brian leading the packhorse, which held supplies as well as various bits of armor and weapons all tightly fastened in large panniers on a pack frame.

"How does this work – you being with Sir Nigel?" asked Alia.

"I have only been Sir Nigel's squire for a short time," explained Brian. "This is part of my training to be a knight. I was first a household page at the castle with time for training in falconry and hunting." Brian's answers were matter of fact; however, both Will and Alia were clearly both interested and amazed at what Brian got to do as part of growing up.

"Who gets to be a knight in Alderwood?" asked Will.

"Knights are both men and women," answered Brian.

Alia grinned and winked at Will.

Brian continued, "Anyone who wants to be a knight in Alderwood can be, though in reality it is not that simple or straightforward. You must find a knight willing to have you apprentice with them for whatever time it takes to learn the skills. And if you fail, you either start over or stop working to be a knight. Though my situation is a bit different," he mused.

Apparently Sir Nigel had been listening because he turned round rather sharply and said "Perhaps this is not a subject that you should continue on, Brian?"

"Oh, I think it's OK," replied Brian. "These two have already shared much with us. If they are associated with Watchers, then I trust them."

"Trust us with what?" asked Alia.

In the short time they had been talking with Brian, Alia had already decided that she trusted Brian. Brian seemed to take everything in stride and appeared to not be traumatized at all by their most recent encounters and the vaporization of Mordlocks. He was smart and friendly and now it appeared that he too trusted Will and Alia. This, thought Alia, showed that Brian was also a good judge of character.

"How did Lady Gwen get into that tree?" asked Alia. "One minute there was a gray hawk and the next minute she was firing arrows on the Mordlocks."

"Lady Gwen and I are cousins," said Brian. "We both come from a small village that lies deep in the forest on the far side of the kingdom of Alderwood. We are Accipitrians, that is, our people can change to hawk or falcon form when needed. My falconry training was somewhat different in that it was with Gwen and was from a different perspective. Though I have much to learn, I can in fact become a small hawk when the need arises. That's how I moved out of the way and into the tree."

Will realized that he had seen Brian climbing down from a tree but had not seen how he managed to climb up into it. He hadn't climbed he had flown!

"Do people think it strange that you and Lady Gwen can become hawks?" asked Alia.

"They don't know," replied Brian. "Of course, Sir Nigel knows. He is familiar with our people, but they are few and far between and live deep in the woods. We are very careful when we switch and never change when being directly observed."

"How did you meet Lady Gwen, Nigel?" asked Will.

"That is a tale for another time," replied Sir Nigel as he continued resolutely down the trail.

And with that, the small group became silent as they followed Sir Nigel farther down the road. As they walked, Will wondered if there were any more Mordlocks in the area. Sir Nigel at least seemed to think that there was no imminent danger. Although, Will thought to himself, Sir Nigel seems to have picked up the pace. He looked over at Alia who, though still going easily, had lengthened her stride to keep up and nodded to Will in recognition that she was aware that they had sped up.

In short order, they began to see signs that they were nearing a village. This was Farrodowne, Brian informed them. First there were cultivated fields, then the occasional farmhouse and barn with fields and livestock nearby. The road widened slightly, then they began to meet a few travelers. The passersby appeared to recognize Sir Nigel and politely nodded to Will, Alia and Brian. In a short time, as they entered the outskirts of the village, they could see newly posted signs announcing a jousting tournament. They stopped to read one of them. It announced that the queen had decided to hold a tournament to find the most skillful knights. The winner of the tournament would become leader of the knights' council and would lead a group of the top finishers in search of the missing king.

"Odd," said Sir Nigel. "This is something that normally would simply be handled by the queen choosing some of the king's most trusted knights to go. It is most unusual to hold a tournament for selection."

"And look," said Brian "the tournament is tomorrow."

"I must take part in the tournament," announced Sir Nigel. "We will push through today so that we can sleep in our rooms at the castle. That way we can be rested for the tournament."

"Can you use our help?" asked Will.

"I would very much appreciate it if you would be my assistants for the tournament," said Sir Nigel. "There will be much to do during the competition between handling lances and armors. Brian is quite able but, with you two also assisting, he would also have time to talk to the other squires and pick up any gossip about what has been going on."

"Count us in," replied Alia, speaking for both of them. "It should be an education."

"Of course, we can put you up in our quarters in the castle," continued Sir Nigel. "That way you will also have an excuse to wander around a bit. With any luck, there may be some news of the missing crystal. Perhaps it has returned to Alderwood. Though if that is the case and it is not in the hands of Watchers, then the portal key and the map must be guarded closely."

"We have the map with us," said Will. "We recovered it right before we went through the portal."

"Then, once we get to the castle, we must put it into a secure place in our quarters until you are ready to return with it to your world. It is too valuable to be kept on your person," remarked Sir Nigel.

The road continued through town and onward toward the castle. For a while they were again surrounded by forest, though now they were meeting travelers more frequently. The castle appeared to grow larger and larger ahead as they grew nearer. At last they broke out of the woods. Though the castle was still a half of a mile away, a huge meadow stretched all the way from their exit from the woods to the drawbridge and gate in the wall that surrounded the castle. Will and Alia just stared at the sight that lay before them. The road wound along the edge of the meadow and ended at the drawbridge. Fully one-third of the field was filled with a neatly laid-out organization of tents of various sizes. Each tent had a distinctive colored banner flying from a pole rising from the middle of the tent. The tents were organized around a long narrow field.

"That field is called the tilt yard," explained Sir Nigel. "That's where the jousting contest will take place. The yard-high wall running down its center is called the tilt. It forms the barrier between knights as they charge toward each other and helps them ride their horses by each other instead of crashing together."

On one side of the field, a large tent covered bleachers for spectators. In the center of the bleacher seating, a raised platform held a dozen large ornate chairs where the queen as well as some of the other nobles would be seated. Across from the bleachers, the other side of the tilt yard held the tents for the knights organized in rows with each knight's crest on a banner hung at the entrance to the tent. Countless colorful buntings and streamers were draped across the all of the structures resulting in a totally dazzling effect.

"It looks like everything is all set up," remarked Brian with feigned nonchalance.

Will glanced at Alia who returned his look. They could tell that Brian too was excited about the upcoming joust.

Will and Alia continued to stare as they traveled the road now running immediately next to the field close to the tents. Everywhere they looked there were knights, men and women, with their horses and squires preparing lances and polishing armor. Bakers, butchers, and other food vendors were setting up stalls from which they would offer things to eat during the tournament.

"I am going to like this," remarked Alia, a big grin spreading across her face. "Look, they have pie!"

Indeed several booths being set up had a number of pies on display. The scent of freshly baked apple and mixed-berry pies wafted on the air."

"And milk, maybe they have milk?" asked Alia, directing her question at Brian.

"Certainly," he replied smiling. "Cow or goat?"

Ali breathed a sigh of contentment as the group continued on past the men, women, and children busily engaged in getting the field ready for the joust.

Sir Nigel led the group past all of the busy preparations being made. They proceeded over the moat via the drawbridge and to the castle gate. Sir Nigel was immediately recognized and the group was passed through the gate by the guards stationed there. Sir Nigel dismounted and led Abacus through the lower village that surrounded the castle to the castle proper. As they walked, he described how the castle was set up. The walls of the castle actually surrounded what amounted to a tiny city. The small village of wood and stone houses that surrounded the base of the castle proper held homes for everyone who worked at the castle. Although supplies were brought in from surrounding farms, there were hundreds of staff including cooks, butchers, bakers, metalworkers, carpenters, waiters, and servants, all who lived within the castle walls with their families, not to mention a large garrison of king's soldiers. The castle itself held a stable and a barracks for king's soldiers as well as suites of rooms for advisors to the king and several knights as well as the king's own family, which consisted of the king (now missing), the queen, and the ten-year-old Prince Amil. In a short time, they found themselves in the stables where everything was unpacked. In short order, Abacus and the pack horse – whose name Brian informed them was Wilbur – were unsaddled, stabled, and left to the stable boys for feeding and grooming. Sir Nigel led them up through the myriad of hallways in the castle to a large oak door that opened into their quarters.

"Welcome to Gulthorn House," said Brian. "As you can see it is part of the castle and not really a house, but this group of rooms have been in Sir Nigel's family for generations."

They were met in the foyer by Lady Gwendolmyr or Gwen as she preferred to be called. Both Alia and Will were still awestruck by her quiet beauty but were soon put at ease by her calm and friendly demeanor. She gave them a quick tour of the house. The main door opened into the foyer from which hallways led to sleeping and common living areas. The sleeping area consisted of several sleeping rooms for the family, plus quarters for a few servants and guests and a few storage rooms. The common living area had a large room with large windows opening to the outside. The walls of the room were paneled and the windows were hung with floor-to-ceiling forest green drapes. One half of the room served as the dining area and was occupied by large oak dining table and chairs. A stone fireplace was the focal point of the other half of the room. Several deep chairs for sitting were situated around the fireplace area. A large portal at one end of the dining area led to a well-stocked kitchen complete with cooking hearth. Cooking implements and pots and pans hung from metal hooks coming from the ceiling rafters. Three smaller storage rooms led off of the kitchen. The tour ended up where they had started in the foyer.

Gwen spoke to Sir Nigel, "First of all, the queen has sent for us and asks that we come to speak with her at our earliest convenience. Also, the guards are still in place in the tower, so the portal key appears to be safe. On another note, the word is that Craghorn Speth is behind this tournament. Since the king disappeared, he appears much more outspoken and seems to have taken over the day-to-day running of kingdom affairs. Now he is looking to have more control over the king's knights and soldiers."

"That is odd," responded Sir Nigel. "For years Craghorn had been one of the king's confidants but maintained a quiet behind-the-scenes presence."

Gwen continued, "He appears to be promoting Sir Gawain as the new head of the knights' council."

"But Gawain has never wanted to lead the knights!" retorted Sir Nigel. "He has always been a great fighter and outgoing comrade and openly preferred the collegiality of the brotherhood of knights to the more serious somber responsibilities of knight leader."

"Apparently he has changed in recent weeks," replied Gwen. "He is more solitary and often in lengthy private discussions with Craghorn with scarcely time for the brotherhood."

"Certainly strange goings-on since the king has disappeared," said Sir Nigel. "If he knew that the map and crystal were stolen, Craghorn might simply be trying to consolidate control of the king's forces in order to ensure that the portal key was well guarded. Perhaps our meeting with the queen will give us more information."

"You must also ready yourself for the joust tomorrow," Gwen reminded him. "There is little time for preparation and it is important that you be properly rested."

"First, we must hide the map in a safe place," said Sir Nigel. He led the group to a small locked storage room at the back of the quarters. There on the floor was a rather large, heavy, locked chest. Gwen produced a key and opened the lid of the chest. The chest was about three-quarters full, but its contents were each wrapped in heavy velvet cloth. Will removed the long leather bag holding the map from his pack and placed it on top of the contents of the chest. Then Gwen re-locked the chest.

"It should be safe enough here," said Sir Nigel as he threw the bolt to the storage room and relocked the door. "Now we must go see the queen."

"I will see that Abacus is properly tended," said Brian, "Then I will ready the jousting tack and the armor. Once I have finished, I will bring Master Will and Miss Alia up to speed on the rules of the joust," he continued. "Perhaps after you visit with the queen, we can talk about how best to find the guiding crystal. If it has been brought to Alderwood castle, then we will find it."

Sir Nigel and Gwen left for their visit to the queen. Brian showed Will and Alia to a spare room where they could make themselves comfortable, then left to make preparations for the coming tournament.

"It is so strange," remarked Will. "In a few days we have met a dragon, weird creatures called Mordlocks, then a knight. Not to mention his wife and squire who can turn themselves into birds. All in what seems to be a medieval setting complete with castle. We have found a map and must still find a crystal in order to prevent one world from overtaking another. All of this so strange and new, yet it feels RIGHT."

"Yes," agreed Alia, "not only does this feel like something we can do, it feels like something we SHOULD do."

"I wonder if this has anything to do with where we came from – who our parents are?" said Will.

"Well," reflected Alia, "we need to find the guiding crystal and return it and the map to The Gallery. Then Amadeus Weldon will tell us what he knows about our parents."

"Agreed," said Will. "But how do we go about finding the guiding crystal? It might be here, but it just as well might be on its way to the portal and be miles away in the woods."

"There are two ways that I can think of to find it," replied Alia. "We can poke around at the tournament and in the castle and determine who has recently come and gone from distances outside of the surrounding villages. There must be a small number of people who actually travel far in this kingdom."

"What's the second?" asked Will.

"Well," replied Alia. "The magic book has been awfully helpful. How about looking in it to see if there is some sort of finding spell or something?"

"The magic book!" exclaimed Will, "I almost forgot about it." He rummaged around in the bottom of his pack and pulled out the book. Slowly he began to go through the book page by page.

Initially Alia looked over his shoulder but, since the book appeared to her to be blank pages, she soon settled in a nearby chair and watched her brother.

"Oh my gosh, I found it!" cried Will. "There is a finding spell!"

"How does it work?" asked Alia, again looking over her brother's shoulder at the page that Will had opened only to again realize that she was looking at a blank page.

Will replied, "It says here to find an object, lay the map out, then pronounce the word "reappero" along with the name of the object."

"So we need a map," said Alia. "Let's find Brian and see what he has for maps. He was going to the stables. We ought to be able to catch up with him there."

You might think that two people, finding themselves in a huge castle in a strange new world, would remain in the relative safety of their new (and comfortable) quarters and wait for their host to return. But not these two. Will and Alia dashed out of Gulthorn House and zoomed down the hallways retracing their steps back toward the stables. There was little traffic in the hallways and soon they were practically running as they recognized various landmarks along the way. Alia was leading as they rounded the corner of one hallway as it opened into a main corridor.

"Almost there," she said, briefly looking back at Will who was right behind her.

"Look out!" cried Will. But it was too late. Alia slammed into a large knight who was walking side by side with a tall bearded man. The knight still wore most of his armor and Alia simply bounced off of him. Will coming right behind him could not stop himself. He collided with Alia and both he and Alia fell in a tangle to the floor.

"A bit careless of our visitors to careen so hastily down our hallways," said the tall bearded man to the knight. A glance passed between the two then both looked down on Alia and Will. "You must be the guests that Sir Nigel was telling us about," said the knight. Both the knight and the tall bearded man had a friendly expression pasted on their faces; however, there was something in their demeanor that gave Will pause.

Both he and Alia rose and dusted themselves off. "We're sorry," said Will. "We were in too much of a hurry. I am Will Barclay and this is my sister Alia. We are guests of Sir Nigel and Lady Gwendolmyr."

"Yes, we know who you are," replied the tall man. "We have just come from a meeting with Sir Nigel and Lady Gwendolmyr."

"I am Craghorn Speth and this is Sir Gawain," the tall man said by way of introduction.

Again, Will noticed that, although his outward features appeared friendly, there was something behind the outward appearance of both Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain that troubled him.

Alia spoke up, "Yes, we are quite sorry and hope to have time to meet with you more later," she said as she tugged at Will's elbow and practically dragged him away, renewing their mission to find Brian at the stables.

"Yes, perhaps we will see you at the tournament?" replied Sir Gawain. But he was talking to the backs of Will and Alia as they were already some distance down the hallway proceeding at a rapid, though not quite as haphazard, pace toward the stable.

"I can't explain it," said Alia. "I just felt we needed to get away from those two."

"Yes!" exclaimed Will. "I felt it too. An uncomfortable sense that there was something else going on behind the mask of civility that they both presented. In any case, we're here," Will pronounced as they rounded a corner in the hallway.

Up ahead they could see the stables and could make out Brian just exiting from Wilbur's stall.

"Brian," he said as he came to a stop, "We need a map of the castle or even of the kingdom. Do you know where we can find one?"

"Sure," replied Brian, "we have a map of the kingdom in our quarters. I am finished here and can get it for you."

The trio quickly retraced their steps – not bumping into either Sir Gawain or Craghorn Speth – and were soon back in the quarters. Brian proceeded to go to a small closet off the main entryway and pull out a large rolled-up map. He led them to the dining room where he unrolled the map on the dining room table. It was hand drawn in detail and showed the castle surrounded by mountains and forest. It also showed roads leading to the surrounding villages and the forests and mountains that made up the kingdom.

"Ok, let's try it," said Alia placing the map squarely in front of Will.

Will placed his hand on the map and then said "Repperio, ah, er, guiding crystal." Nothing happened.

"Try again," said Alia. "This time without the "ah", "er'. I'm pretty sure that's not part of the charm."

Will repositioned his hand on the map then spoke, "Repperio guiding crystal."

Nothing.

Brian, who was standing nearby with a look of wonder on his face said, "What are you doing?"

"We have this book of magic spells that only Will can read and we are trying to locate the guiding crystal," replied Alia, all in one breath as if this was old news to Brian and was news on the same level as saying it might rain today.

Brian, being from Alderwood and perhaps a bit more used to things magical – he could after all be a bird if so inclined, remarked. "What does your book say about casting the spell? Details are important."

"It reads quite simply, To find an object, lay the map out, then pronounce the word Reappero along with the name of the object," replied Will.

"Two things," said Brian matter-of-factly. "It says the map not a map. So you probably need a magic map, not one of the many common maps of the kingdom like this one. Also, the guiding crystal is what we all call it, but it probably has a more formal name. You need to find out what that is and use it to do your spell."

"So where do we get the map and. . ."

"The MAP!" both Alia and Will said simultaneously.

"The map we brought," continued Will. "It glowed almost as a guide when we needed it before. It must be magical."

The three bounded down the hallways of the quarters to the door of the storeroom. Brian, who had stopped briefly in another part of the quarters, held a key to the door in his hand. He quickly unlocked the door. Moving to the large locked chest, he removed a second key from a ribbon around his neck and unlocked the lock on the chest.

"Don't ask," he said as a non-answer to the look on Alia's face wondering how he happened to have a key to the chest hanging from his neck. "There," he said, throwing open the lid of the chest and stepping aside.

Will reached in and took out the leather bag, pulled out the map and unrolled it onto the floor. "Look," he said, pointing to the spot on the map where the portal in the side of the mountain was depicted. There was a drawing of the guiding crystal with light streaming through it and illuminating a spot on the portal door. Under the picture of the crystal, it said recto baculo. Quickly, he put his hand on the map and said, " _Reappero recto baculo_."

In the area of the map depicting the castle, a small spot appeared casting a greenish glow.

"It's here," cried Will and Alia simultaneously.

"It looks like it's right here in the castle," confirmed Brian. "Now what?"

"Is there a detailed magic map of the castle?" asked Alia.

"None that I know of," replied Brian.

"In that case, first we talk with Sir Nigel and Gwen, then we poke around a bit at the tournament to see if we can pick up any clues," said Will. "We are looking for news of someone who has arrived back here within the last few days."

"While we're waiting for Sir Nigel and Gwen to return," began Alia. "And for dinner," she interjected by way of excusing the borborygmi coming from her abdominal area that startled both Brian and Will. "Why don't you tell us what to expect at the tournament tomorrow?"

"You've seen the fence that runs down the middle of the tilt yard," began Brian, "the two riders start at opposite ends of the tilt yard and on either side of the low middle fence, the tilt, and charge each other. Whoever knocks the other knight off his horse is the victor. If a knight breaks a lance, they score a point. Each joust involves four runs. If no one is knocked from his or her horse by four runs, whoever has the most points, wins. For the tournament tomorrow, there will be one winner, so victors continue to joust with victors until a final winner is determined."

"Does a knight break a lot of lances?" asked Alia.

"Usually one or two per match," answered Brian. "Most of the knights are fairly skilled at landing on target, which is usually the other knight's shield. But the knights are also good at slanting their shields so that the lance just glances off of the shield. A knight has to hit the shield squarely, then either the lance will break or the lance will unseat the other knight. There is a pool of lances provided for the joust for all knights. There are thirty knights in the tournament tomorrow so there will be an impressive stand of lances stacked at each end of the tilt yard at the beginning of the tournament. Not having to bring lances helps us since with Sir Nigel's armor and shield plus the armor for Abacus, we will have a small wagonload to transport to Sir Nigel's tent at the tournament. Lady Gwen will be in the stands with the queen's court. I will be Sir Nigel's primary assistant, and you two will be much needed to help with transport plus assisting me with Sir Nigel and Abacus. But there should be plenty of time to observe the tournament and to talk with other pages when Sir Nigel is not jousting.

Will was excited about seeing his first jousting tournament, but he could tell that Alia was practically beside herself. Alia had been a fencer at Farmstead Academy but she was interested in all sorts of martial arts. She could barely contain her excitement.

"This is going to be w-a-y cool," she said, her brown eyes brightening with anticipation.

"I could use some of that excitement to help me pack everything up," said Brian. "If we get everything packed up before dinner, we can be well rested for an early start tomorrow."

"Let's go," agreed Alia.

With Alia in the lead, the three went back to the stables. In a short time, under Brian's guidance, they had a small wagon packed high with all of the equipment needed for the next day. They finished by tying it down to ensure that it would make the short trip to the jousting field the next morning. Then the three returned to Gulthorn house. Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen had already returned.

Will began by telling them that the map had located the guiding crystal to somewhere in the castle. He also mentioned that they had literally bumped into Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain.

"There really is no explanation for Craghorn's change in behavior," said Sir Nigel. "Craghorn did not mention that he had heard of the theft of the map or the guiding crystal. Consolidation of leadership and decision making under him seems more due simply to the queen's lack of interest in day-to-day matters, fed by her increasing worry over the disappearance of the king. Even more unbelievable is the fact that the leadership of the knights is being taken over by Sir Gawain. He was never before interested in that responsibility. Craghorn seems to think that Sir Gawain winning the tournament tomorrow is a foregone conclusion and that victory will pave the way for him formally taking over the leadership of the knights."

"Which makes it all the more important that you be well rested for tomorrow's tournament," said Gwen. "If anyone has a chance to defeat Gawain tomorrow, it is you. If you win, we will be in a better position to lead in the search for the king and the missing guiding crystal."

Dinner that evening was a relatively quiet affair. Everyone sat in the dining area and, over a meal of roasted fowl, bread, and a variety of roasted vegetables, they discussed how best to locate the guiding crystal. All agreed that they would keep their ears open during the tournament to hear of anyone coming back to the castle after being away for a while. They would also spend more time wandering around the castle to see if there were any areas that appeared newly off limits or more guarded than usual. Sir Nigel pointed out, however, that the crystal could be in anyone's personal quarters and it would be completely unnoticeable, so that the best bet for locating the crystal would be news of a recent return to the castle.

After a while, the conversation slowed. Sir Nigel rose from the table and stretched, then yawned.

"To bed," he said. "Dawn will come soon enough."

# Chapter 7. At the Joust

Will and Alia slept soundly through the night. The sun was just creeping over the treetops to the east when they were awakened by Brian.

"Good morning!" he greeted them. His eyes shone brightly with excitement. "Tournament Day! Eat a good breakfast this morning because we will be quite busy this day."

After breakfast, Brian led Alia and Will to the stables to pick up the cart full of equipment. The plan was that they would use Wilbur, the packhorse, to haul the cart down to the tournament area and Sir Nigel's tent. They would also stable Abacus in the area that had been set aside for the knight's horses. Sir Nigel would join them after attending a knights' meeting. Lady Gwen would be with the queen's entourage for the day.

In the stables, Brian showed Will and Alia how to harness Wilbur to the cart. He then attached a long lead to Abacus' halter, which he tied loosely to the back of the cart. With Will seated next to him on the cart and Alia sitting on top of the load, Brian flicked the reins as a signal to Wilbur and they began the short trip out of the stables and through the front castle gates and on to the plain where the tournament would take place.

The tournament area bustled with activity. Carts similar to the one Brian drove were everywhere as squires and assistants set up the equipment in the tents assigned to other knights. A number of men, women, and even children were scattered throughout the large covered viewer's gallery hanging banners and baskets of flowers. As Brian turned the cart down the lane that ran immediately behind the viewer's gallery, wondrous scents wafted from the tents behind booths as vendors had begun roasting the food that would be available throughout the tournament. Cakes, cookies, pies, and other sweet treats were displayed on row after row at tables of other vendor booths.

"I am already feeling full just smelling and looking at all of this food," remarked Alia, whose excited grin had grown so large it scarcely could fit on her face. Brian and Will continued to inhale deeply as different enticing smells floated in on each new breeze.

In a short time, they were past the vendors' area and arrived at the tents for the knights. Sir Nigel's tent was clearly marked with his family crest, which was interestingly enough a large hawk with wings spread clutching a sword, a spear, and an arrow. Brian halted the cart and with Will and Alia assisting him, unloaded the cart and organized its contents in the tent.

"We still have some time before Sir Nigel is due," said Brian. "Let's wander around and see what we can learn."

As the three walked among the tents, Brian was greeted dozens of people. He introduced Alia and Will as cousins from a far-off village to everyone who stopped to talk with them. At one point, they stopped among a large group of pages and squires.

After introducing Alia and Will and as part of the general conversation, Brian asked whether anyone was aware of new visitors to the castle and whether anyone or their knights had recently returned after being away for several days. Most reported that their knights had been busy in the countryside nearby and were seldom gone more than a night. A few of the squires did report that their knights had been out, sometimes for several days, but it all sounded quite ordinary. One small freckle-faced page did, however, have an experience to relate.

"My knight is part of the queen's guard," he reported, "and we are housed somewhat near the quarters of Craghorn Speth. A few days ago, we arrived back late in the evening from our day outing. I was still putting my knight's equipment away late into the night. I heard footsteps in the hall as several people passed by on their way to Craghorn Speth's door. I was curious as I thought maybe someone had found the king, so I peeked outside into the hallway. I thought I knew most of the castle guard, but these were three men in soldier's uniforms that I had never seen before around the castle. Craghorn himself quickly let them into his quarters. Odd that they should come at that time of the night, but, since there was no announcement the next day, I figured it was just personal business and forgot about it."

"Were they carrying anything?" asked Will.

"Now that you mention it," replied the page, "one of the men had a small leather pouch in his hand. The object inside it did not appear to be heavy, but he was carrying it in front of him as though it was important."

A look flashed among Will, Alia, and Brian. Maybe it was the guiding crystal! They thanked their new acquaintances then, moved on to explore the grounds further.

"So maybe the crystal is in Craghorn Speth's quarters," whispered Alia excitedly.

"We need to figure out a way to get a closer look at his rooms," said Will.

"Best bet is during the celebration feast after the jousting tournament," said Brian. "We can plan that with Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen."

The trio proceeded on, greeting other folks that Brian knew as they walked around the site. The crowd steadily increased as the start of the tournament drew near. The air was filled with an excited buzz as people scurried around making final preparations for the tournament.

"We need to head back to Sir Nigel's tent," said Brian. "He will be expecting us to help him prepare for the opening ceremonies."

The three of them turned and retraced their steps through the vendor's lane as they headed back toward the place where all of the knight's tents were set up and organized in several rows. They were still a few hundred yards from Sir Nigel's tents when Alia abruptly stopped, looking down one row toward the right.

"What's that person doing?" she asked Brian as she looked at someone a dozen tents down the row.

All three paused and looked. They were standing near the corner of a tent that was situated on the main lane that led to the jousting area proper. It was possible to peer around the corner of the tent and observe the person working without being observed themselves. The person, appeared to be unloading a large cart and moving equipment into one of the tents. A flap at the back of the tent was open.

They were fairly far away and could not see the face of the person as a hood covered their features. As they watched, they could see that the person take the armor pieces and place them on a stand in the tent. Next to the stand was a table holding the knight's shield and ceremonial sword. The figure paused, taking his time at the shield. He briefly waved his hands in the air

"That's odd," said Brian.

"Whose tent is that?" asked Alia.

"Dunno," replied Brian, watching the figure intently. "But we can go around to the front and see whose banner is posted."

The three backtracked so that they could go down the main lane past the front of the tent. They were still several tents away when the banner in front of the tent came into view. A shiny silver knight's helmet on a background of blue vines with gold highlights sparkled in the morning sunlight.

"That's Sir Gawain's tent," remarked Brian.

Just then, the hooded figure came out of the front of the tent and headed down the lane toward the three.

As he came near them, they could see that the man, walking slightly hunched, wore the clothing of a squire under his hooded cloak. He had longish brown hair that partially covered his eyes. His eyes were small and brown, almost black, and his nose was rather pronounced. A small patch with the crest of Sir Gawain was stitched to the front of his cape.

"Morning," the man said nodding and glancing briefly at them as he passed.

"Good morning," replied Brian, briefly glancing at the man then looking down to hide the surprised look that came over his face.

Will looked at Brian as the hooded figure continued to walk down the lane and back toward the castle. Brian was obviously puzzled.

"What?" asked Will. "Who was that and why do you look so surprised?"

Brian looked back down the lane and saw that the figure was no longer in sight. "I do not know who that was, but I know who it was not. That was not Chandry Makepeace, Sir Gawain's squire," Brian replied, still looking startled.

"I wonder if he was doing some sort of magic with his arms waving about," said Alia. "Is that possible?"

"Anything is possible," replied Brian. "It may be very hard to tell if anything is going on since Sir Gawain is one of the better jousters. We are going to have to watch Sir Gawain very carefully. Let's not mention this to Sir Nigel until we have more to report."

With that, the three hastened to return to Sir Nigel's tent. When they arrived, Nigel was already there.

"Ah," he said. "Just in time. I need your help to don my armor and get Abacus ready for the opening ceremonies. The tournament will start shortly."

The three began the process of readying Sir Nigel for the tournament. Brian delegated Will to prepare Abacus while he helped Sir Nigel. Alia was responsible for bringing the various pieces of armor to Will and Brian. Brian assisted Sir Nigel in donning his armor while, at the same time, giving Will instructions as Will worked on Abacus nearby. Once she had arranged the armor in the appropriate piles, Alia held Abacus' bridle as Will saddled him and attached the few armor plates that served to protect his chest and sides during the joust. When they were done, Brian assisted Sir Nigel into the saddle and passed him his ceremonial jousting lance. Sir Nigel sat astride Abacus, both of them gleaming in silver armor plate. Sir Nigel raised his visor as he looked down on the three.

"Thank you," he said. "Now go find a place to view the opening ceremonies. I will meet you back here after the opening ceremonies for final instructions for the joust."

Will watched Sir Nigel go off down the lane and then turned to Brian. "Where should we go to see the opening ceremonies?" he asked.

"I know just the place," said Brian smiling. "Follow me."

He led them all the way down the lane toward the castle drawbridge. Just before the drawbridge, they turned to the right and followed a lane next to the outermost limits of the tents set up for the tournament. After a short walk, they turned right again. They were on the service alley that flanked the back of the tents that served as stands for the vendors preparing food for the tournament. Once again, the scents of foods being prepared for sale during the tournament assailed their senses and started their mouths watering. To their right were the tents set up for the tournament. The brushy undergrowth of the forest started almost immediately to their left. Brian continued down the lane until the middle of the large spectator tent was on their right. He turned left toward the forest and plunged a few yards into the forest where he stopped at the base of a huge tree.

"We're here," he announced looking up.

Following Brian's gaze, Will could see that the tree was truly massive. Its trunk was at least four yards in diameter at its base. The tree rose another four or five yards straight up before it separated into several great branches, which in turn branched again and again creating a truly impressive green canopy that was so dense, he could not see into it but could only follow its outline. From this vantage point near the base of the tree, it appeared that the branches reached into the sky almost scratching the undersurface of the lower clouds.

Alia too looked up. Then she looked toward where she knew the jousting would take place. The large spectator tent lay between where they stood at the base of the tree and where the knights would be clashing.

"If we are going to see anything," she remarked, "we will need to be pretty high up this tree. And it would take a pretty long ladder just to get up that first set of branches."

Brian looked at Alia and his eyes sparkled. He led Alia and Will around the base to the side of the tree that faced the woods. He pointed to an opening in the foliage up high where the tree started to branch.

"Please keep your eyes there," he said. Then he plunged into the woods and disappeared from their view.

Alia and Will looked up. Will thought he had a glimpse of a bird as it flew into the tree. Then a few seconds later, a knotted rope dropped from above and Brian's head popped from the opening.

"Come on up!" he said greeting them with a big smile.

Alia and Will climbed the knotted rope hand over hand to the opening. Inside the opening they were amazed to see that, while the leaves on the branches on the outside were so dense that they could not see out, the foliage at the center of the tree was fairly sparse. They could see a skeleton of large branches reaching high up in the tree. Two large branches swirled in parallel up the center of the structures forming a natural staircase that led higher and higher.

"This tree is an Alderwood," said Brian. "In fact, it is one of the oldest Alderwoods left in the kingdom. For some unknown reason, all Alderwoods are built like this in that they have a dense outside of branches and leaves with a central pair of branches that serve as a stairway to enable anyone to go farther up the tree. You will see that this one has been modified somewhat higher up."

And, with that said, he turned and let them up the steep natural spiral staircase in the middle of the tree. Higher and higher they went until they realized that they could start to see through the outer foliage into the countryside. When they were high enough that they were actually above the top of the spectator tent, the spiral staircase opened up onto a large solid wood platform complete with a solid man-made railing built of branches. The leaves on the upper branches had thinned substantially. From here they had a great view of the entire expanse of the jousting field.

"Wow. This is really something," remarked Alia. "We can see everything from here."

"Yes," replied Brian. "Until I am needed to assist Sir Nigel, I figure that we can all watch from up here. Once I go down, you two can still continue to observe from up here."

Further conversation was halted by a noise from below.

"Coming up!" a young voice hollered. This was followed by the light sound of feet moving up the central branch stairway.

Will looked at Brian in alarm.

"Not to worry," said Brian. "Friends."

In short order, a head poked up where the stairs met the platform. One of the young pages Will and Alia had recently met popped up onto the platform followed by several more.

"This is the unofficial gathering spot for pages and squires," explained Brian. "We meet here regularly to share news of what our knights are up to. It is especially useful whenever events are held in the field in front of the castle."

Although most of the young men that had come up were smiling and looking out over the tournament grounds with anticipatory excitement, one lad did not look very happy. His associates were obviously trying to perk him up but were not having much success.

"There's Chandry Makepeace," said Brian, indicating the despondent-looking lad. "He is Sir Gawain's squire. And he does not look too happy."

"What's up, Chandry?" he asked, moving over and greeting the squire. "Is your knight ready for the tournament?"

"Not my knight anymore," replied Chandry, the frown on his face deepening. "I was dismissed a month ago."

"What for?" asked Brian. "You've been with Sir Gawain for four years. I thought you liked working for him and he liked your service."

"I did and he did," Chandry answered glumly. "But a couple of months ago, he started acting strangely. He was always easy to talk to and liked being with people. Almost overnight, his mood became darker and he wanted to be left alone to do knight's business as he called it. Last month, he let me go along with most of his staff."

"Then who is assisting him for the joust?" asked Brian.

"Mohr Dunn," replied Chandry. "About the time he started acting strangely, he hired a new guy, Mohr Dun. There are rumors that he comes from a long line of minor magicians. And not helpful magicians either. People he does not like seem to come into minor mishaps.

A look flashed among Brian, Will, and Alia. More strange happenings in the kingdom, thought Will. Perhaps they could find out something from speaking more with Chandry and the other lads. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of trumpeting horns.

"The parade is beginning!" said one of the squires, as all of the lads moved toward the side of the tree looking out over the tournament grounds below. They could see a few people still hurrying to find places in the stands. As they looked down, they had a grand view of the line of people coming out of the castle. The line was led by a platoon of the king's guards carrying the king's banner. They were immediately followed by the queen sitting astride her chestnut mare. She was followed by a few of the ministers from the king's court. Most prominent among them was Craghorn Speth who was most noticeable because he appeared to have his hands full keeping the bay charger on which he was riding under control. The charger repeatedly shook his head and sidled to and fro dancing around in line impatiently.

"That's odd," noted Brian. "Something has upset his horse Quandry. He is used to parades and is usually pretty easy going."

The queen and her court dismounted and moved into the large tent covering the spectator seats. Trumpets again sounded, and from the castle gates a column of knights appeared. Thirty knights, their armor glistening in the sunlight, rode two abreast on impressive chargers decked out in the knight's colors. Each knight carried their shield replete with colorful crest and a ceremonial jousting lance decorated with matching colors. As they passed the section of the tent where the queen sat, knights raised their visors and saluted the queen. After all the knights had passed in review, the column circled back forming a single file in front of the barrier in the middle of the jousting field then turned their mounts to face the spectator tent and saluted once more. The tent erupted in whistles and cheers as the queen, her court, and all of the villagers expressed their appreciation at the sight.

"Time for me to go," said Brian as he and all of the other pages and squires moved to descend the staircase. "The tournament will start shortly."

Looking out over the jousting field, Will could see that the line of knights had now disbanded and the knights were moving toward their separate tents to ready themselves for the contest.

In a short time, trumpets sounded again. Two mounted knights appeared. They proceeded to opposite ends of the tilt yard to receive a lance from the armorers stationed at each end. They then turned to face each other from opposite ends of the field, one on either side of the barrier. They saluted each other and in the direction of the queen, then lowered their visors. A uniformed official in the middle of the field raised a green flag, lowered it, and then promptly dashed toward the spectator tent, getting out of the way as the knights charged each other. Alia and Will watched as the chargers gained speed coming toward each other at a gallop. As they neared their opponent, the knights lowered their lances targeting their opponents' shields. The lances met the shields with an audible wood-on-metal clang followed by a splintering sound as the knight on the right broke her lance on the opponent's shield while taking a glancing blow from her opponent on her own shield. Neither knight was thrown from their saddle as they passed each other, their chargers slowing as they reached the end of the jousting field.

"So the knight who broke their lance gets a point," said Alia, recalling what Brian had told them.

"Yes," agreed Will. "And if neither gets dismounted, the knight with the most points in four tries wins."

Both knights picked up new lances from their squires and the two knights faced off again. Again the signal was given and the two chargers galloped toward each other and the knights met with a resounding clang. This time, the knight who had replaced her lance landed the tip of her new lance just off center on the other knight's shield. The result was to cause the opposing knight to twist severely in his saddle, lose his balance, and fall to the ground. Both cheers and groans erupted from the stands as spectators cheered the victor and others bemoaned the loss of their favorite. The winning knight returned to the center of the field where her opponent had fallen, and dismounted. The two knights faced each other, raised their visors, and saluted each other. Then they remounted and rode back toward the knights' tents. One to prepare for her next encounter, the other was finished for the day. The next two knights soon appeared at opposite ends of the jousting field ready to begin.

"Look, it's Sir Gawain," Alia said, pointing toward the left end of the field. Sir Gawain sat on a huge coal black charger struggling for control as his horse was clearly agitated and not settling down. As the official dropped the green flag, however, Sir Gawain spurred his mount and the experienced horse switched to charger mode as it galloped toward the oncoming horse. Knights met in a clash with Sir Gawain's opponent coming completely unseated even as he broke his lance on Sir Gawain's shield.

"Looks like Sir Gawain advances into the next round," said Alia.

"It looked like he was having problems with his charger," noted Will.

Just then there was a commotion at the base of the lookout tree. Then Brian's head popped up as he raced up the stairs and onto the platform.

"Sir Nigel is about to go." He said excitedly. "I want to have a good look from here."

"What's with Sir Gawain's charger?" asked Will. "It looked like he didn't want to go."

"Yes, I saw that," replied Brian. "Usually Sir Gawain's charger is steady as a rock and quite calm. Until the very last minute when Sir Gawain kicked him into the charge, he seemed to be fighting Sir Gawain. Most unusual."

The sound of trumpets announcing the next match interrupted their conversation. As they looked out over the jousting field, they could see Sir Nigel and Abacus at one end and Sir Caldrell, his opponent, at the other end. The flag dropped and the two knights charged each other. Sir Nigel took a glancing blow on his shield, but his lance hit squarely on his opponent's shield. Sir Caldrell was unseated and fell heavily to the ground.

"Sir Nigel wins!" cried Alia, and the three jumped up and down and slapped each other on the back.

"I need to go down and help him get ready for his next match," said Brian as he scurried down the spiral staircase off to the jousting field.

Alia and Will continued to observe the tournament from their perch high up in the Alderwood tree. There were trumpet flares and signaling flags flashing followed by the clash of lances meeting shields accompanied by the sounds of splintering lances or very quickly followed by a resounding thump as one of the knights was sent flying from his or her saddle and fell to the ground. As the day progressed, it became clear that Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain were steadily advancing to the top of their respective groups. If things continued, they would meet in the bout that would determine the overall champion.

Will noticed that, despite the fact that his black charger continued to express its displeasure at carrying his rider into the fray, Sir Gawain, sometimes at the very last minute, always managed to get his horse in control and charging down the tilt yard.

"They are both winning, but quite differently," noted Alia.

"What do you mean?" asked Will.

"I noticed that Sir Nigel is winning more by score than by unseating his opponents," replied Alia. "If the match goes the full four runs, he will have scored two or three points by breaking lances. Only occasionally does he knock someone off his horse. Sir Gawain, on the other hand, has very few broken lances. Lots of his fellow knights are hitting the ground today. And almost no one has broken a lance on his shield."

Just then, Brian returned sprinting up the spiral staircase and joining Will and Alia looking out over the tilt yard.

"Didn't you say that knights often broke at least two lances per match?" asked Will.

"Yes," replied Brian. "And I know what you're going to ask next. What's up with Sir Gawain today! That's the talk of the jousting yard. The knights are usually pretty good at side-slipping lances with their shields. That makes it harder to get a dead-on hit that will knock them out of their saddles or break a lance. A number of knights have noted that they just don't seem to be able to slip Sir Gawain's lances today. And he seems to be particularly good at deflecting their lances so that they do not break."

"But doesn't everyone use the same lances?" asked Alia.

"Yes," replied Brian. "Since all of the lances come from the racks at each end of the jousting yard and are taken from the rack by the lance handlers, it's pretty hard for anyone to complain. Knights are saying that Sir Gawain is just incredibly on target today."

"Does anyone else handle the lances?" asked Will, continuing to gaze out over the jousting field.

"Well, the squire assisting each knight takes the lance from the lance handler and hands it up to his knight," replied Brian.

"Ok, so watch," said Will, pointing to the end of the jousting yard.

Sir Gawain was again preparing to go into combat. As his charger did its usual fidgeting, his squire received the lance from one of the lance handlers. He took a small cloth from under his tunic and proceeded to wipe down the lance, then handed it up to Sir Gawain.

"That's Mohr Dunn," said Will, indicating the squire. "Is it normal to wipe the lance before handing it to the knight?"

"It is the practice of some of the knights to have the lance wiped particularly at the base or handle," answered Brian. "They want to be assured of a good grip. It is a bit unusual to have the whole lance wiped."

"Chandry mentioned that Mohr Dunn is rumored to be a minor magician," said Will. "Could he be doing something to the lance? And what about that arm waving we saw him doing earlier in Sir Gawain's tent. Maybe he put a charm on the shield."

Brian's eyes widened. "Hadn't thought of that," he said. "Possible I suppose. What can we do?"

Will pulled his small book of spells from the pocket within his tunic where he had sequestered it. "I wonder. . ." he mumbled as he paged quickly through the book. "Aha! This might do," he said, flattening the book open at a page. "Insulo res," Will read aloud. "This charm protects inanimate objects from other charms spells or incantations."

"OK," said Alia. "How will this work?"

"If I can use this charm on the whole rack of lances, we can make sure that no other charms are being used on the lances. Getting to the shield is a whole different matter. I would need to take any spell OFF."

Just then there was a resounding crash from down below as Sir Gawain's latest opponent fell to the ground.

"Whatever you do, it must be soon," remarked Brian. "They are into the semi-final rounds. Winners there will meet in the championship."

The three descended the spiral stairs and proceeded towards the jousting field. They approached one end and Brian moved to talk with the man who appeared to be in charge of the lance handlers. Alia and Will could see Brian gesturing at them and then toward the lances. The man looked over at them then back at Brian and some discussion ensued. After a few minutes, they were both nodding. Brian waved Alia and Will over.

"This is Greg Hawthorne. And these are my cousins I was telling you about," he said, introducing Alia and Will to the man while winking at Will and Alia. "I told Greg that this is your first joust and that you would really like to participate in the festivities. He has agreed to let you help by having you assist in the prep tent."

Greg Hawthorne spoke as he pointed to a mid-sized tent that was located off to one side at the end of the field. "Once a lance is used and before it is reused, it is taken to the tent and inspected to make sure it is OK for re-use. All of the lances are frangible lances. That means that they have a breakable tip. It's actually not the tip itself, but the portion of the lance shaft behind the tip, which is made of a different wood that will splinter if enough force is put to it. So each lance needs to be inspected and the tip replaced if necessary. Inspection and replacement is the job of the experienced armorers who are working today as part of the lance crew. Your job will be to bring the lances to the tent once they are used and to run them back to the racks at either end of the tilt yard. We are short of pages for that job and the ones we have assigned are about tuckered out from running to and fro."

Brian ran off to assist Sir Nigel in the semi-finals. Will and Alia followed Greg Hawthorne and were introduced to the armorers and the rest of the lance crew. Soon they were busy collecting lances from the knights as they were used and running them to the tent, then running them back to the racks and handing them off to the lance handlers who stacked them back on the rack. It took concentration and maneuvering to make sure that Will handled each lance. The easy part was the lances he handled on his own. But for each lance that Alia handled, they had to make sure that Will put his hands on them for a few seconds. Sometimes they contrived an accident where, on crashing into each other as they ran back and forth, they managed to exchange lances. At other times, expressing interest in the work of the armorers, Will managed to handle the lances as they were passed through the inspection and repair process. All the while Will was whispering "Insulo res" each time he handled a lance. Finally, the semifinals were over. The armorers had been impressed with the energy and enthusiasm shown by Will and Alia and thanked them warmly.

Will and Alia were still catching their breath as they found Brian in the food corridor. He handed each of them a good-sized roasted poultry leg while biting into one of his own.

"I think I managed to charm every lance," said Will, between bites of the delicious meat.

"And I noticed that Sir Gawain had fewer unseated riders," said Brian. "He still won handily, scoring many more lances broken on his opponent's shields. Hardly anyone is breaking a lance on his shield."

"I found a reversing spell in the book," said Will. "But I will need to touch Sir Gawain's shield in order to use it." Then he explained to Alia and Brian how he planned to put the reversing spell on Sir Gawain's shield.

"That should work," said Brian after listening to Will's explanation. "We'd better get going before the last round starts."

The three made their way to the alleyway that ran in front of Sir Gawain's tent. There were lots of people strolling along the alley enjoying the spectacle. Each knight's tent was mostly open in the front with each knight's crest on a banner outside their tent. Many knights no longer dressed in armor were overseeing the packing up of their equipment by their squires. People stopped with words of congratulation or consolation for their favorite knight, depending on how they had performed. The air was buzzing with excitement as two of the most well-thought-of knights were going to meet in the finals.

As they neared Sir Gawain's tent, Will spoke. "I am going to step into the alleyway behind the tents as there is almost no one there. Give me a minute, then go ahead as planned." With that he disappeared into the back alley then, murmuring his invisibility charm, truly disappeared.

Alia and Brian approached the front of Sir Gawain's tent. Mohr Dunn was busy cleaning the large jousting saddle. Sir Gawain's shield lay on a nearby table.

"So," said Brian moving near to Mohr, "your master and my master in the final bout."

Mohr looked up at the two. The frown on his face indicated that he was a bit put off by the interruption. "Yea," he replied still scowling, "and soon my master will be champion."

Alia, looking out of the corner of her eye could see small tufts of grass near the shield table becoming slightly dislodged as Will, covered by the invisibility charm moved close to the shield.

"Not so fast," said Alia, moving in front of Mohr but to the side so that, as Mohr faced her, Mohr's back was toward the shield. "Sir Nigel has been doing quite well. He can beat Sir Gawain."

"Not a chance, mate," replied Mohr dismissively. The joust will soon be over and Sir Gawain will be the new champion and proclaimed leader of the knights.

Both Alia and Brian saw the flap at the corner of the tent move slightly as Will moved away from the table and to the area behind the tent.

"We'll see," said Brian cheerily with a wave as both he and Alia moved off down the alleyway.

As they neared the point where the alleyway intersected with a more crowed thoroughfare, all at once, Will was back with them.

Brian jumped a bit, startled at Will's sudden re-appearance at his side, but Alia appeared unfazed.

"Done," said Will. "I used the same undo charm I used on the charmed manacles that held Ramador. They removed that charm. Hopefully they will undo the charm on the shield. Where can we go to have a closer view of the finals than from the tree? Is there somewhere else we can watch from?"

"People are still out and about on the main thoroughfare," said Brian looking at the stands opposite where the queen and nobles were seated. "If you go there now and move up to the higher rows, you will be able to see quite well. I need to go and attend Sir Nigel, so I will leave you here."

"Right, we will see you afterwards," replied Alia. "Good luck."

"Yes, good luck," Will repeated as he and Alia headed toward the stands.

Once there, they clambered up the bleacher seating to the top row. From there, they looked slightly down on the tilt yard but were positioned to clearly see all of the action.

In a short time, the stands began to fill up as the crowd returned for the final joust. Once again the air was buzzing with excitement as people claimed their favorite. A fanfare of trumpets announced the queen and her court as they returned to her box in the stands opposite where Will and Alia sat. They could see Craghorn Speth at her side. A second fanfare called the knights to the joust with Sir Nigel on Abacus calmly moving in on the left and Sir Gawain on his fidgeting black charger on the right. The flag rose and fell and the knights charged each other. There was a loud crash as they met in the middle of the tilt yard. Neither knight was unseated as they passed each other and continued down the course. As they raised their lances, the crowd erupted in cheers. Both knights had broken their lances on their opponent's shields! Judges at the scorer's table raised two flags. Both had scored.

"A tie!" said Will. "I think the undo charm worked."

They looked down over the tilt yard. Sir Nigel, now on the right was calmly exchanging his broken lance for a new one. On the left, Sir Gawain had thrown his lance on the ground near the lance stand and grabbed the new lance being offered by one of the lance crew. Obviously angry, he called in the direction of the armory tent. Mohr came running out and stood looking up at the mounted knight. Sir Gawain leaned over and threw his shield on the ground at Mohr's feet. Mohr took a small cloth from under his tunic and proceeded to re-polish the face of shield. They could see his lips barely moving as he finished. Then he passed the shield back up to Sir Gawain.

"I think he's replacing his charm!" Alia whispered in Will's ear over the clamor of the excited crowd.

The two knights again faced each other from the ends of the tilt yard. The signal flag rose and dropped. Both knights lowered their lances as their chargers thundered towards each other. Again there was a loud clash as the lances impacted shields. This time however, Sir Nigel's lance glanced off of Sir Gawain's shield while Sir Gawain's lance snapped as it crashed squarely onto Sir Nigel's shield. One flag was raised at the scorer's table and the scorer pointed it toward Sir Gawain.

"The charm on the shield IS back," Alia said. "We've got to do something!"

Will grabbed his backpack slinging it over his shoulder and moved to exit the bleachers. "Come on," he said.

They moved to the end of the row and then down a few rows until they were close enough that they could jump off of the end of the bleachers to the ground below. Will drew his book of charms out of his backpack and hunched over it as he turned the pages. He stopped at one section, read hurriedly, and then slammed the book closed.

"I found something," he said. He explained quickly to Alia what he wanted her to do.

In the meantime, both knights had again readied themselves at their respective ends of the tilt. The flag rose and fell and they charged each other. Again there was a resounding crash and again Sir Gawain's lance was broken while Sir Nigel's though striking squarely on his opponent's shield simply glanced off. Another score for Sir Gawain. Fans for Sir Nigel groaned. The score was now 3 to 1 with a single run left.

Will glanced over and could see Brian on the sidelines obviously distressed. As the knights re-formed at their respective ends for the final tilt, Will scrambled over behind the edge of the bleachers while Alia ran to the side from which Sir Gawain would charge. Alia looked to find Mohr Dunn. She located him standing at the edge of the armorer's tent about thirty yards from where Sir Gawain sat getting control over his fidgeting charger. Alia slid into the small crowd around the armorer's tent a yard or so away from Mohr. Both knights again faced each other and pointed their horses in the direction of their opponents. Just before they released their horses to charge, suddenly, from the direction where Will had gone, a small wild rabbit appeared. It appeared frightened as it dashed directly into the tilt field until it reached the tilt, the barrier that served to separate the two jousters, then it turned and headed directly toward Sir Gawain, dashing madly about with its bright cotton-white tail flashing. Although Abacus scarcely moved at Sir Nigel's end, the zigging and zagging rabbit clearly unnerved Sir Gawain's black charger, which switched from fidgeting to leaping all four feet into the air as the rabbit zipped by and disappeared into the tented area beyond.

The net effect was that Sir Nigel was almost thrown from the saddle. He dropped his lance and shield as he grabbed the reins firmly to calm down his steed. Mohr Dunn, seeing the dropped shield started to dash over from the armorer's tent. At the same time, however, Alia moved toward Mohr and directly in his path. The two collided and fell in a heap. Alia apologized profusely while at the same time making sure that their limbs remained firmly entangled and, at least for the moment, preventing Mohr from getting up off of the ground.

At the same time, Will appeared, coming out of the crowd near where the commotion had occurred. He moved forward accompanying the ground crew who moved to assist Sir Gawain. After Sir Gawain regained control of his horse, the lance handler picked up the fallen lance and passed it up to Sir Gawain. Will quickly bent down and picked up the shield, passing it to another member of the ground crew who passed it up to Sir Gawain. No one noticed Will's lips moving ever so slightly as he repeated the undo charm.

Will met Alia over by the armorer's tent where Alia had finally untangled herself from Mohr who was still dusting himself off and grumbling, having missed all of the activity around Sir Gawain. Will winked at Alia as they both turned to watch the final run.

Both knights steadied their chargers and faced each other from opposite ends of the tilt yard. The signal flag rose and fell. Both knights lowered their lances and pulled their shields in tight to cover their attack. Both chargers thundered down the lanes and there was a resounding crash as lances met shields.

Time seemed to almost stand still as Will saw the activity in slow motion. Sir Gawain's lance struck Sir Nigel's shield and broke one quarter of the way up from the tip. Sir Nigel's lance struck solidly on Sir Gawain's shield. Its tip stayed firmly on the center of the shield as it lifted Sir Gawain out of the saddle. For a moment, Sir Gawain hung in the air as his horse continued on down the lane. Then time sped back up as Sir Gawain crashed to the ground. Sir Nigel had won!

Alia whooped as she and Will dashed over where Brian stood and all three pounded each other on their backs as Sir Nigel's fans roar of approval overwhelmed the groans of Sir Gawain's supporters. Sir Nigel turned Abacus around and faced Sir Gawain. He raised his visor and saluted his fellow knight, then turned and saluted the queen. Only after he turned and rode toward where Alia, Will, and Brian stood did he crack a small smile.

Alia and Will accompanied Brian to Sir Nigel's tent. Sir Nigel had removed his armor and was soon engulfed by well-wishers. He moved off toward the main stands so that the three could attend to Abacus and pack up his armor and equipment. In a short time, the three had removed the protective armor from Abacus as well as the saddle, then packed up all of the equipment. While Will and Alia tidied up, Brian went to get Wilbur to pull the cart. In a short time, horses and equipment were back in the stables and both horses were happily feeding from buckets of grain as a reward for their work for the day.

The three returned to the Gulthorn family quarters where they were met by a smiling Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen. Quickly, Brian relayed what had happened and how they had thwarted Mohr Dunn's magic. Both Nigel and Gwen expressed their appreciation for what the three had done to even the odds for Sir Nigel. After sharing congratulations all around, Sir Nigel spoke.

"The joust celebration feast is tonight. Brian, of course is invited, but I would like you two to attend as my guests. I will formally introduce you to the queen and Craghorn Speth. That will also give you an excuse to wander around a portion of the castle where you do not normally go, so perhaps you can learn more about the guiding crystal."

"And speaking of Craghorn Speth," Lady Gwen said, "he did his best to hide it, but he was obviously surprised and disappointed that Sir Gawain did not win the joust. He obviously had some plans that involved Sir Gawain taking over as leader of the knights."

"Perhaps with Sir Gawain not becoming the knight leader, he will return to being more of his old self," mused Sir Nigel. "Even Ciar, his horse seems to be uncomfortable around him."

"In the meantime," said Lady Gwen, we need a little time to get ready for the feast. Brian has dress clothes and I think we have some clothes in storage that will work for you two. Brian can go with you to visit the tailor to have them fitted.

Once they had acquired appropriate clothes from deep within Sir Nigel's and Lady Gwen's closet, Will and Alia followed Brian out of the quarters and into the main part of the castle. As they were proceeding down one of the main hallways within the castle, they passed a smaller long hallway that continued off for several yards. The hallway had several large statues spaced evenly down it and no traffic whatsoever. At the end of the hallway was a large closed door flanked by two guards.

"What's down there?" inquired Alia indicating the small hallway and the guarded door.

"That's the door to the first room, which is outside the room where the key to the mountain door is kept." said Brian. The first door leads to a room with a second locked, guarded door. The key is kept in the second room. The guards keep the key to the outer door, but as far as I know, the key to the inner door is kept by the king. Or perhaps the queen, now that the king is missing. I know that it is rumored to be kept in the king and queen's quarters rather than on their person."

"Is it possible that Craghorn Speth now has it?" asked Will.

"He has been a trusted advisor of both the king and queen," replied Brian. "He most likely is at least aware of where it is kept."

Continuing on, they soon left the castle and proceeded to the royal tailor whose shop was located just down the street from one of the main castle entrances. Brian introduced Will and Alia to the Mr. Noggins, the tailor, who had Will and Alia try on the garments. In a short time, he had taken measurements and placed tailor's marks in certain places. He then took the garments into a back room where he passed them to his assistants. In a very short time, he returned with the neatly folded garments.

"All finished," he said. "Please enjoy the feast and pass my congratulations to Sir Nigel."

Will, Alia, and Brian all thanked Mr. Noggins and made their way back up to the Gulthorn quarters to make final preparations and plan for the evening's escapades.

# Chapter 8. The Feast

#

The main castle hallways were crowded as nobles and knights made their way to the great hallway for the celebration of the jousting tournament. It was starting to be dark outside but inside, hallways were brightly lit with torches hanging every few yards from the castle walls. As Will and Alia were surprised to learn, a mix of minerals housed in each torch base once ignited provided abundant smokeless light that glowed until the lights were extinguished by covering the mineral mix.

Will and Alia closely followed Sir Nigel, Lady Gwen, and Brian as they walked down the large hallway that led through the doors to the great banquet room. As they neared the doors leading to the banquet room, they could see that the right wall was hung with a row of portraits.

"Whose pictures are those?" asked Will as they approached the portraits.

"Those are portraits of the succession of kings of Alderwood," replied Brian.

The pictures showed a sequence of both young and old men each bearing a family resemblance. The first few pictures were quite old and Will noticed that the fashion of the times was reflected in the finery that each king wore. As they neared the final picture, the portrait of the most recent king, Will and Alia froze. They looked at each other in shock.

"Ben!" they cried simultaneously.

"Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen, about to enter the doorway of the banquet room, looked back at Will and Alia in surprise.

"Well, er, the king is more properly called King or King Benjamin, not really just Ben," cautioned Sir Nigel.

"You don't understand," said Alia, her voice now a whisper, having noticed that their outburst had drawn the attention of nearby nobles and knights. "We've SEEN him! We've SEEN the king."

Trying to look calm and collected, Sir Nigel led the group back down the hallway and into a small room just off of the main corridor. He shut the door firmly.

"What do you MEAN you've seen the king?" he questioned.

"The old man we bumped into the day before we met you; he said his name was Ben. It was the king."

"You said he was accompanied," said Sir Nigel. "Describe his companion."

"Shorter than Ben, blue eyes, neat white hair, mustache and beard," replied Will.

"Alfred Griggs, the king's doctor!" exclaimed Sir Nigel. "You must have seen the King. Where did you see them and under what circumstances?"

Briefly, Will and Alia filled the others in on meeting the king and Alfred and what had transpired.

"King Benjamin must have been under some sort of spell," said Gwen frowning.

"Ben seemed dazed and confused," commented Alia. "Alfred said that they were searching for the cure. A blue mushroom."

"Ah, the blue mushroom," said Nigel frowning. "Very rare indeed."

"But we found some the next day," interjected Will.

"You found them!" exclaimed Nigel. "Where are they?"

"I have them in my backpack," explained Will.

"That changes things a bit," mused Sir Nigel. "Although it is important to find the guiding crystal and to ensure the security of the mountain doorway, my first order of business must be to organize the knights to find Alfred and the king and get them the antidote."

"Perhaps it is best if the news about your meeting with the king is kept among us until we have a better handle on the odd goings-on around here," said Nigel.

The group left the small room and rejoined the crowd moving into the banquet room. Sir Nigel and Lady Gwendolmyr were shown to the head table with the queen, Craghorn Speth, Sir Gawain, and a few others while Will and Alia joined Brian and several other squires at a table toward the back of the large room. Musicians began playing and the staff began filling everyone's glasses. A bell sounded and the crowd became quiet. All eyes went to the queen's table. Queen Elora Godfrey stood and the crowd all rose as one. The queen, still looking a bit sad, now had a small smile on her face as she raised her glass.

"Although we are still missing my dear husband the king, today is a day of celebration. Our brave knights have showed their valor and skill," she said, indicating the knights seated at the tables in front of her. "And we are especially pleased at the return and reaffirmation of the king's knight, Sir Nigel Gulthorn. Gentlemen, I salute you. Sir Nigel, welcome home."

A roar of approval erupted from the knights' table followed by applause from the other tables. The queen resumed sitting and everyone else sat. Wait staff immediately appeared bearing huge platters of food as the feast commenced. Soon, the air was filled with scents of delicious food and sounds of musicians playing and people conversing.

Alia nudged Will as she nodded toward the dessert table. Following her gaze, Will's eyes alighted on a whole table filled with pies. Next to it was another table on which rested several clear glass pitchers of milk. Will could only shake his head.

At the table, the talk turned to the joust.

"Boy, Sir Gawain was ticked off at Mohr Dunn," remarked one of the pages. "After he was dismounted by Sir Nigel, he was practically throwing his armor at Mohr when they were in his changing tent. It looked like the only person more surprised by Sir Gawain's defeat was Mohr Dunn."

"Not sure why it was his fault," commented another squire. "Sir Nigel was just better today."

Will, Alia, and Brian just looked at each other knowingly and said nothing.

"It looks like Sir Gawain is still not over it," said one of the pages as he indicated the head table.

They all watched as Sir Gawain said something to the nobles on either side of him, then moved to say something to the queen. Although his face was expressionless as he excused himself from the queen's table, the second his back was to the queen, the furrow returned to his brow as he made his way out of the banquet room.

"Look," said Brian whispering to Will and Alia. "Craghorn Speth is leaving too."

Sure enough, Craghorn was saying something to the queen. As his cape was still draped over the back of his chair, it was clear that he was not leaving for the evening, but he too slowly made his way out of the banquet hall stopping to talk to several nobles on the way.

"Hmm, I wonder if those two are meeting up?" mused Will. "Brian, you stay here and see what else is said. We should be back shortly."

With that, Will and Alia made their way out into the hall. As they passed through the doorway into the hall, they could just see Craghorn Speth farther down turning onto another main corridor. Since most people were in the banquet hall, there were only a few servants in the hall.

"How are we going to follow him without being seen?" asked Alia.

Will smiled at Alia. With one hand, he reached out and touched Alia's shoulder and whispered " _Disapero_ ". If anyone had been looking at them – and no one was - they would have been quite startled as both Alia and Will suddenly disappeared.

Alia and Will had some adjusting to do as neither could see the other. Will had kept his hand on Alia's shoulder and he whispered, "You lead."

Alia led them quickly down to the intersecting hallway into which they had seen Craghorn Speth turn. In a minute, Craghorn was back in sight. Alia, staying well back, continued to follow Craghorn with Will's hand lightly on her shoulder. Soon they realized that they were heading in the direction of the room that held the key. They saw Craghorn Speth turn off of the main hallway into the long hallway that dead-ended at the key room. Carefully peering down the hallway, they could see that Craghorn had caught up to Sir Gawain and they were halfway down the hallway in whispered conversation so as not to be overheard by the guards farther down at the doorway to the key room.

"We need to get close so we can hear what they are saying," Will whispered to Alia.

Still keeping a statue between themselves and Sir Gawain and Craghorn Speth, Alia crept closer. Soon, they could hear the discussion.

"... and my men tell me that the dragon has been freed, Aldor," Sir Gawain said speaking to Craghorn.

Why is he calling Craghorn Speth Aldor? wondered Will.

"The dragon is freed and two strangers appear at the castle AND my plans for you becoming first knight are spoiled, Monar. This is too much coincidence. We must accelerate the timetable for our plans. I have managed to obtain the key to the inner key room from the queen's quarters."

Again Will noted the oddity. This time Craghorn Speth addressed Sir Gawain as Monar.

"You have the crystal," replied Sir Gawain. "We must take the portal key from the key room. The map to the clearing in front of the doorway to our homeland has come back to the castle. Once we have the portal key, we can seize the map. Then we can re-open the door."

A shock wave went through Alia and Will. These two men were talking about opening the door to Mordomum! And they spoke like they came from the other side. This does not make sense thought Will. There are Mordlocks, not men, on the other side of the mountain door.

Craghorn and Sir Gawain turned down the corridor and approached the guards to the outer key room door.

"Please unlock the door," Sir Gawain requested.

"Yes, Sir Gawain," replied the guard with no hesitation. Using the large key fastened to a key ring at his side, he unlocked the door, then pulled it open. Both guards saluted and stood aside as Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain entered the room. Alia, with Will firmly attached, allowed the two to proceed into the room; then they tiptoed around the guards and into the outer key room. Alia and Will stopped just inside the door and watched as Sir Gawain and Craghorn Speth strode boldly across the room and confronted the guards at the door to the inner key room.

"The queen has requested that one of her most trusted knights, Sir Gawain, and I bring the portal key up to the feast so that she can show it during the ceremony for the first knight, Sir Nigel, as a sign of his new responsibilities," said Craghorn holding up the key to the door in his hand. "Please stand aside."

"But, Sir . . . ," began one of the guards.

"I know this is sudden notice, but we are in a bit of a hurry," interrupted Craghorn Speth. "Of course, you will accompany us with the portal key to ensure that it continues to be guarded," he reassured them.

"But, Sir . . ." began the other guard.

"Now, please, stand aside," repeated Sir Gawain, this time in a sterner tone.

The two guards looked at each other, then shrugged and stepped to one side.

Craghorn bent slightly and inserting his key unlocked the door. Both he and Sir Gawain entered the room. Alia and Will were about to follow when Craghorn came rushing out.

"The portal key is gone!" he exclaimed.

"Yes sir," said one of the guards, the other guard nodding in agreement. "The last time the king was here, he took it with him."

"W-H-A-T!"sputtered Craghorn.

"Sir," continued the guard, "he asked us to not tell anyone. Except the queen. She knows."

Craghorn Speth continued to sputter; however, he was making lots of noise but not much sense. He stepped back from the guards and over to Sir Gawain. Even though he spoke in a whisper, Will could hear what he said.

"You must find the king and get the portal key. Leave at once!"

Sir Gawain did an about-face and strode out the door and into the hall. Will and Alia scrambled away from the doorway to stay out of his path. Will could not believe their good luck. The key was safe from Craghorn's clutches for now. However, Will and Alia's luck was about to change.

From out in the hallway, there was a commotion. Suddenly, Mohr Dunn accompanied by several large guards burst through the doorway into the room. Instantly, Will and Alia pressed themselves against the wall.

Mohr Dunn stopped still a few yards from Craghorn Speth. Will and Alia were tight against the wall between Mohr and his group on one side and Craghorn and the key door guards on the other side.

"Master," said Mohr Dunn. "The two newcomers are missing from the feast. They disappeared shortly after you left the banquet. I fear that they have followed you."

"But certainly, you can see that they are not here," replied Craghorn, gesturing around the room.

"I am not so sure," replied Mohr Dunn. He sniffed the air. Suddenly, he reached into a small leather bag that was hanging from his belt and grabbed something. Quickly, he threw a handful of fine dust into the air and cried " _Reappero_!"

Will and Alia materialized. They were caught in the middle and visible to everyone.

"Ha!" smirked Mohr Dunn. "I thought so."

# Chapter 9. In the Dungeon

#

"Guards, seize them!" cried Craghorn. "This area of the castle is restricted from outsiders. Surely they are spies who seek to steal the portal key!"

"But the key is not there," argued Will. "And we are guests of Sir Nigel."

"Nonetheless, you did not know about the disappearance of the key until moments ago and you used magic to gain access to a restricted part of the castle. Seize them and take them to the dungeon," he repeated. "We will take them before a tribunal to determine their guilt or innocence."

Quickly, Will and Alia were grabbed by the guards accompanying Mohr Dunn. They offered little resistance but were nonetheless roughly handled as they were led out of the hallway and down several stairways into the bowels of the castle. Led by Mohr Dunn, they proceeded down a long passageway through an archway that opened into a large room. They arrived at what Will concluded must be the dungeon. The room was dark being lit only by a single torch on the wall and a fire in an open pit in the middle of the room. Several guards sat finishing their evening meal at a rough-hewed wooden table in the room. On the side of the room that held the doorway through which they entered, there were manacles bolted to the wall with chains. A large ring of keys also hung from a hook on the wall. Each of three other sides of the room was made of stone and held a door made of iron bars. Each door appeared to be the entrance to a large cell. There were no lights in any of the cells and neither Will nor Alia could see farther into them than a few yards.

"Search them," said Mohr Dunn.

Their captors briskly patted down Will and Alia. One of their captors felt inside the pocket of Will's tunic. His hand grasped the book of charms sequestered inside. He handed the book to Mohr Dunn. Mohr opened the book and began to page through it.

"What is this?" he asked. "The pages are blank."

"It is my diary," replied Will. "I lost my old one and have not had a chance to begin writing in my new one."

"You won't be needing this," smirked Mohr Dunn and tossed the book into a large pile of trash near the fire. "Lock them up. They will remain here until an inquisition date is set."

One of their captors grabbed the ring of keys from the wall and opened the door to the cell opposite from where they had entered. Will and Alia were summarily thrown into the cell and the iron door clanged shut. There was a second dull metallic clank as the key turned and the door locked. As their other captors moved away, Mohr Dunn approached the bars of the cell door. Placing his hands on the lock, he mumbled a few words. The lock glowed for just an instant then returned to its normal dull metal coloration. He looked at Will and Alia and smirked again as he walked away.

The air was filled with a musty smell coming from a deep layer of old straw covering the floor. The cell was square and quite large, being about nine yards on a side. High up on the far side wall, a small barred window opened onto the night sky. As their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Will and Alia moved deeper into the cell. Moonlight from the barred window weakly illuminated the far darkest corner of the cell, where there appeared to be some sort of large bundle covered in cobwebs.

"He put a spell on the lock," remarked Alia, looking first at the door then at Will. "Maybe you can still use your undo spell to open it."

Will moved over to the door. He placed his hands on the part of the door that held the lock mechanism. " _Ramal versus exclamador_ ," he whispered. Nothing. "My undo spell may have reversed the charm he placed on the lock, but this lock is keyed. We need to get to the keys. I guess we are stuck here until they announce a hearing. Hopefully the hearing will be soon. I wonder if they have such a thing as bail?"

"IF they even tell anyone that we are down here," said Alia. "As devious as Craghorn Speth appears to be, I wouldn't be surprised if he just leaves us here. Very few soldiers know that we're here and they probably take orders from Speth."

"Well, sooner or later, Sir Nigel, Gwen, or Brian will notice that we are missing and will start looking for us," replied Will.

"But what would make them even think to look down here?" asked Alia. "They might even figure that we went off to look for the king."

"You're right," agreed Will. "We can't just wait and hope someone finds us. We need to figure a way out of here. Let's take a good look at this cell and see if we can figure something out."

The two split up and began to closely examine the cell. The entire cell was fairly dark, the only illumination coming from that cast by the fire pit in the center of the guard room and the soft glow of moonlight coming through the small barred window. They explored more by feel than by sight, moving straw and feeling the cold stone floor and lightly tapping walls and floors for a hint of any loose stones. Gradually they made their way back to the large web-covered bundle that lay in the far corner of the cell. Here they could see a bit better as moonlight from the window fell on part of the bundle.

Now that they were right next to it, they could see that the bundle was not one bundle but two. At least there appeared to be two humps at the top of the bundle that melded into one large lump. The bundle was about a yard and a half tall and just as wide and not nearly so deep, but it appeared to be tightly adhered to the floor and the corner wall by a large mat of cobwebs.

"It feels like it's covered in canvass," said Alia as he started to brush off the thick covering of cobwebs.

He worked on the cobwebs on one of the bumps protruding from the top of the bundle. Suddenly he stopped and jumped back a half a step.

"There is HAIR!" he said in alarm.

Both of them stepped in closer and started to carefully peel small mats of cobwebs from the bump. Slowly a shape began to emerge. For a second, Will and Alia stopped and looked at each other speechless, then resumed. Finally, they had the whole bump cleaned off.

"It looks like Craghorn Speth!" whispered Alia, her voice filled with both surprise and alarm. "And it's either a very, very good wax statue or there is some kind of statue-spell on him."

"And if that IS Craghorn," said Will continuing Alia's train of thought, "who or what is upstairs?"

"And what is this other bump?" puzzled Alia.

Quickly and quietly they resumed, carefully removing cobwebs away from the head, exposing a neck and finally a seated body completely clothed in a tunic and canvas pants. The body was as stiff as board and had no color except varying shades of gray.

As they worked, they realized that the bundle was actually two bodies and the other bump must be another head. "I wonder . . . ," mused Will, as they began to clear cobwebs off of the second bump. Soon features emerged.

"Holy catnip!" exclaimed Alia. "It's Sir Gawain! And just as stiff as Mr. Craghorn Speth."

"Things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser," murmured Will.

Just then their thoughts were interrupted by a fluttering noise high up at the barred window. A small sparrow hawk alighted and was perched in the window looking down at them. Suddenly it dove down and landed on the floor of the cell and just as suddenly Brian appeared in its place.

"There you are!" said Brian to the startled but happy Alia and Will. "When Craghorn came back to the feast and you didn't turn up, I asked around. One of the pages thought he saw you with some guards being led by Mohr Dunn. I thought you might turn up here."

"Did Craghorn Speth say anything?" asked Will.

"No," answered Brian. "Sir Nigel asked him and he said that he had not seen either of you since the start of the celebration."

"I KNEW it!" exclaimed Alia. "He is up to no good."

"Well, we've got to get you out of here," said Brian. "Sir Nigel is now head knight. He can order your release."

"We might have an even bigger problem," said Will, glancing at the uncovered lumps partially illuminated over in the corner.

Brian's gaze followed to where Will was looking and alighted on the uncovered faces of Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain.

"What strange magic is this!" he cried. "That looks like Craghorn and Sir Gawain." He moved closer. "They must be statues, or simulacrum of some sort." He moved closer, poking Sir Gawain's chest.

Slowly, very slowly, almost imperceptibly slowly, Sir Gawain's eyelids lowered then raised.

"He blinked!" all three cried in unison.

# Chapter 10. Freed by Sir Nigel

"Hey! Hold it down in the cell over there," called out one of the guards. "We're trying to catch a nap."

"Sir Nigel needs to know of this," Brian said. "I am off to get him. First we get you two out of there, then we'll sort this."

And, in the blink of an eye, he was a sparrow hawk leaping for the small barred window at the top of the cell wall. One minute he was again perched on the sill between the bars, then, just as quickly he disappeared.

Alia and Will moved over to finish clearing off the cobwebs from the two figures. They were practically attached to the wall with webs and it took no small effort to pull the cobwebs away from their bodies. They were careful to try to not push or pull on the bodies too much less they topple over.

All of a sudden, there was a commotion outside of the cell as Sir Nigel followed by Brian strode into the center of the guardroom.

"You have my guests in your cell," said Nigel speaking loudly and forcefully. "Please release them at once. I will take full responsibility."

All of the guards had immediately jumped to attention at Sir Nigel's arrival. One of them hastened to the wall and pulled down the key ring. He moved to the cell door and turned the key in the lock then pulled at the door. The door popped open and Will and Alia scrambled out of the cell. They partially closed the door behind them in an effort to conceal from the guards what their manipulations had revealed.

"I trust that you two are none the worse for wear," said Sir Nigel as he strode over to meet Will and Alia in front of the door.

"We're fine," said Alia, picking some of the old straw and cobwebs from her clothes.

"But we have other things to talk about," said Will, lowering his voice and glancing back towards what was inside the cell.

"Yes, Brian told me what you have discovered. I must take a look for myself.'

Sir Nigel entered the cell followed by Will, Alia, and Brian. He moved over to the two now almost completely uncovered figures.

"I have never seen such a thing," he said in amazement as he examined the two figures closely. "This is something more in Gwen's area of expertise." Turning to Brian, he said, "Please go back upstairs and fetch Gwen. She was headed towards our quarters when last I saw her."

Brian nodded in assent and headed deeper into the cell. "There's a quicker way," he said. And suddenly the small sparrow hawk reappeared and dove out through the barred window.

Sir Nigel turned to Will and Alia. "I know he can, but it never ceases to surprise me when he does that," he said, shaking his head in wonder.

In a very short time, the sparrow hawk reappeared for a second on the sill of the barred window. Even as it dove to the floor and became Brian, a second larger gray hawk dove through the window. In a second, both Brian and Lady Gwen were standing before them.

Lady Gwen moved over to the figures and examined them. "A binding spell," she said, turning to look at the others. "I have not seen one in quite some time. It is rumored that the higher level Mordlocks use them in order to take the place of their victims. If that is true, then this is the real Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain."

"That would explain much about the odd things happening," said Sir Nigel.

"Just a minute," said Will, as he dashed out through the cell door. Startling the guards who were standing around the center tables, he ran to the pile of trash and picked up his book of charms from where Mohr Dunn had thrown it. Quickly, he ran back into the cell. Opening the book he started to page through it.

"Here," he said. "Reversing binding spells."

Placing one hand on the Craghorn figure and the other on that of Sir Gawain, he recited, "Transfixion revero."

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, some color began to creep into the two figures and their features began to soften. A tiny light began to appear in their eyes and they began to blink. Suddenly from somewhere up in the castle, there was an incredible clamor. Cries of alarm were sounding and shouts calling men to arms could be heard.

"Gwen, stay here with these two," shouted Sir Nigel as he dashed out of the cell and headed for the door leading back up into the castle. He was followed by Brian, Will, and Alia. The commotion appeared to be coming from the area of the banquet hall. Ladies and their servants were fleeing from the area while armed soldiers streamed in the direction of the hall. Sir Nigel led the way into the hall. Several knights with swords drawn were surrounding one of the windows that looked out over the courtyard ten yards below.

"What was all the commotion?" said Nigel addressing one of the knights.

"One minute Craghorn Speth was sitting at the head table when suddenly in his place was a huge Mordlock. The alarm was sounded instantly, but the Mordlock managed to leap from this window into the courtyard below. He disappeared back into the castle over by the wall. Several knights are in pursuit."

"He won't leave without the guiding crystal!" said Will. "We need to try to stop him."

"Follow me!" cried Nigel. He led a group of armed knights followed by Brian, Will, and Alia back into the castle and straight to Craghorn Speth's quarters. Arriving at Speth's quarters, the group divided up to search the rooms for the Mordlock and the crystal. There was no sign of either. The other knights ran off to search further into the castle.

"We need to close the front gate," said Sir Nigel. "Brian, quick as you can, alert the gate guards."

Brian looked around. There was no one there except Sir Nigel, Will, and Alia. Quick as a flash, he leapt for the window. For a brief moment, there was a small sparrow hawk on the window sill of Speth's quarters, which quickly disappeared streaking toward the castle gate.

"If Brian can alert the guards in time, we may cut off the Mordlock's egress from the front gate," said Sir Nigel. "But we need to check the other exits." He left Speth's quarters and proceeded back down several hallways to a waiting room outside the royal quarters. There was a large oak door slightly ajar.

"This door is always kept locked. It is one of the secret stairwells that leads to the stables. Quickly now, we must prevent them from leaving."

The three dashed down the long winding stairs and entered the stables. Three stall doors hung open, the horses having been removed in a hurry.

"Three, why three?" said Nigel.

"Mohr Dunn!" exclaimed Will. "He was assisting Monar Rothwild as Sir Gawain to win the tournament. He must be a Mordlock who can do charms."

Sir Nigel called to a stable hand, "Quickly please, saddle Abacus."

All at once, there was a commotion coming from the area of the front gate. Sir Nigel and Will left the stables at a run, with Sir Nigel calling to the stable hand to bring Abacus to the court by the gate as soon as he was saddled.

They were met by Brian at the gate. The drawbridge was up and several knights were pounding at the huge wheel that lowered the drawbridge. It appeared to be stuck.

"The guards said that Sir Gawain left an hour ago," Brian said. "So he is long gone. However, two Mordlocks on horseback just dashed through the gate before it could be closed. One stopped on the other side and did something that raised the drawbridge and now it will not move."

"That must have been the one that was Mohr Dunn, and he has cast a spell on the gate," said Will. He moved over to the large wheel that operated the chain that raised and lowered the drawbridge. Placing his hand on the wheel, he murmured the undo charm. Suddenly, under pressure from the knights, the wheel began to turn and the drawbridge lowered. They ran out onto the drawbridge. Off in the distance they could see one Mordlock jumping from his horse and disappearing into the woods. Mohr Dunn, still on horseback, was three-quarters of the way across the field to the woods.

"That's the one that cast the spell," said one of the guards.

There was a commotion as the stable hand arrived with Abacus. Sir Nigel leaped into the saddle and launched Abacus in pursuit of the fleeing Mordlock.

"Abacus is fast, but he will never catch the Mordlock," said Brian. "And once he reaches the woods, he will disappear in the thickets of the forest."

Sure enough, Will could see that although Abacus was gaining on the other horse, the Mordlock was almost to the woods. A few of the knights had moved to the ramparts and launched arrows toward him, but they appeared to fall out of the sky short of their target.

"He must be using some sort of charm to repel the arrows," said Will.

"Look!" said Brian, pointing toward the one of the turrets high above the castle gate.

Will turned to look upward. Standing on the turret platform, just visible between the crenellations, Lady Gwen appeared with her bow. She reached into her quiver and pulled out an arrow. Even from this distance, it was apparent that it was not an ordinary arrow. The whole thing shone with a sparkling silvery sheen.

"A Gilbroth arrow!" exclaimed Brian. "They are made by Accipitrians arrow masters specifically to counter charms."

Will saw Gwen knock the arrow then raise the bow and pull back on the bowstring. There was an audible thrum when she released the arrow and it sparkled as it sped toward its target. Unlike the other arrows that had fallen short, the arrow flew directly to the fleeing Mordlock, where it imbedded itself deeply into his back. For a second, it looked like the rider was unaffected, but then, almost in slow motion, Mohr Dunn slumped forward then fell from the saddle as the horse galloped on. This was quickly followed by a puff of smoke as the body of the Mordlock disappeared, leaving only ashes. In the distance, Sir Nigel pulled up on Abacus. He turned and gazed directly at the tower from which the shot had come and saluted Lady Gwen, who simply turned and left the turret.

After Sir Nigel returned Abacus to the stable, Nigel, Brian, and Will made their way back to the dungeon. There Lady Gwen was already back administering to the real Craghorn Speth and Sir Gawain. Both looked considerably better. Their color had returned and they were sitting up on chairs in the guard's room outside the cell where they had laid inert for so long. They looked up when the group entered.

"They have recovered enough to speak," said Gwen, "but their voices are barely a whisper. As near as they can figure, they were given some potion by Mohr Dunn, which fairly quickly put them into their statue state. The Mordlocks that took their place carried them into the dungeon and placed them there without the guard's knowledge. They told the guards that the cell was being used temporarily for storage and to leave it locked."

"Monar and Aldor," whispered Sir Gawain, looking directly at Sir Nigel.

"Before they were completely unconscious in the statue state, they heard their captors talking," explained Gwen. "Sir Gawain's mimic was named Monar Rothwild and a Mordlock named Aldor Capron took the place of Craghorn."

"We heard them addressing each other as Monar and Aldor before we were captured and thrown into the dungeon," confirmed Alia.

"And Aldor Capron sent Monar off with the guiding crystal," said Will. "We heard him instructing Monar, the creature that was Sir Gawain, to go find the king and get the portal key. But neither the key nor the crystal will be of any use without the map."

"The MAP!" Will, Alia, and Nigel cried in unison.

"It's gone," said Gwen, shaking her head sadly. "The first place I went when you called, Sir Nigel, was back to our quarters. I noticed that the door to our storage room was open," said Gwen. "The chest was broken into and the map was gone."

Just then Brian returned. "The front gate is now closed and guards are on the alert," he said.

"But Monar Rothwild is off to find the king and get the portal key with an hour's head start," said Will. "And Speth or Aldor Capron, the Mordlock that WAS Speth, has the map, and the guiding crystal. We need to stop them. But how?"

"Our first priority must be to find the king," said Nigel. "We can start looking where Will and Alia last saw him. In the meantime, the real Sir Gawain can organize the knights to scour the castle to make sure that there are no more Mordlocks lurking about. It only a few hours til morning. Everyone should get a few hours of rest. We will leave at first light."

# Chapter 11. Finding the King

Will and Alia awoke just before sunrise. Alia had been given a sword by Sir Nigel and attached it in a scabbard at her side where it was easily accessible. Will was busily paging through his book of charms looking for ones that might come in handy.

"Odd," he remarked, "there are a ton of interesting charms in the book, but none seem particularly useful now. Yet every time we really need one, I find it quickly."

"Well, it's a magic book," replied Alia. "Maybe it's meant to work like that."

"I hadn't really thought of that," said Will. "But perhaps you are right. In any case, I hope it keeps working."

"Everything is happening so fast," said Alia. "And those Mordlocks are both huge and scary. If they are able to open the portal door, the people of Alderwood are in serious trouble."

"Yes, I agree," said Will nodding. "But. . . "

"In spite of the strangeness, the Mordlocks and magic, it FEELS like this is what I should be doing," interrupted Alia.

"Exactly," agreed Will. "Knights, a castle, a dungeon, Mordlocks, magic. It still feels right. Somehow we fit."

"Ready to go?" said Brian, sticking his head in the door. "We are heading to the stables."

At the stables, horses had been readied for all of them. Besides Abacus, there was a gray for Gwen and a smaller chestnut for Brian. A pair of bays, each with their black manes and tails contrasting with their glistening brown coats, stood saddled and ready for Alia and Will. A small pack was tied behind the saddle of each horse.

"We must make haste," said Sir Nigel. "So we will each be carrying our own supplies."

They mounted and were soon following Nigel out of the stable, into the courtyard and out through the castle gate. They traversed the large field in front of the castle and soon were on the road that ran through the woods. In a short time, the woods opened and they passed through the village of Farrodowne. By late morning, they entered the road that wound through the woods leading to the mountains. They rode for a while along the road in the woods. Then Sir Nigel halted Abacus and the group pulled up behind him.

"The Mordlocks have several hours start on us. We will continue on horseback," he said, indicating Will and Alia, "but I think we need Gwen and Brian to search ahead to locate the Mordlocks."

Gwen and Brian dismounted, fastened their horses in line, and passed a lead to Alia. In the blink of an eye, they changed into their hawk forms and were off, making their way above the forest canopy. Soon they were out of sight.

"We will continue on this road," said Sir Nigel ask he gently shook the reins to encourage Abacus onward. "Keep an eye out for the king. If he is in the forest near the road, he may not be visible to Gwen or Brian but we might catch sight of him."

The three continued on at a steady pace. The sun rose steadily over the mountains ahead and the air warmed. But the light forest breeze and sharp pine scent made the travel easy and pleasant and almost made Will forget that their mission was crucial. They stopped by a spring to rest the horses and have a bite to eat. They had halted in a meadow that was adjacent to the road so that they had a clear view of the sky over the treetops in all directions. Suddenly, Abacus perked up his ears and snorted, looking into the sky in the direction that they had been headed. In a minute, all three heard the distant cry of a hawk and could see a tiny speck off in the distance. The speck steadily increased in size as it uttered a few more piercing cries; it was joined by a smaller speck and shortly both were recognizable as a gray and a sparrow hawk. In a few minutes, Gwen and Brian emerged from the forest into the meadow and stood before them.

"I have found the king," said Gwen matter-of-factly. "Unfortunately, so have the Mordlocks. The king and Alfred Griggs are tied up in a camp of about a dozen Mordlocks a few hours' ride from here. Neither Monar Rothwild nor Aldor Capron is with them but they both were with the group earlier today. They found the key. It was on a ribbon around the king's neck. I was able to listen in on their conversation. They have gone to find the portal. The camp is quiet now and most of the Mordlocks are resting or beginning preparations for a feast tonight. Apparently, as a reward for finding the king, they have been promised that they can eat him and Alfred."

Both Will and Alia jumped up in alarm.

"We ought to hurry if we are going save them," cried Will.

"Yes, we will," answered Gwen calmly. "But Mordlocks are creatures of habit and no doubt will enjoy their time preparing for the feast. They like to roast their victims alive and you have time to make it there before dark. Brian and I will go ahead and watch over the king in case someone decides to start early; however, this is a dangerous group of Mordlocks. It will take all of us to free the king."

"You two go on ahead," said Sir Nigel, indicating Gwen and Brian. "Will, Alia and I will make plans for the rescue. Brian can find us on the road when we are getting close."

Quickly Gwen and Brian returned to the sky.

"If the feast does not start until after dark, we might be able to free the king and Alfred without a fight," speculated Sir Nigel. "If Abacus and I distract them, do you think you two may be able to free them?

"Certainly we can get close without being detected," said Will "I can use the invisibility spell."

The three remounted and continued down the road now at a faster pace. Abacus, sensing a conflict ahead, seemed eager. His nostrils were flared and his ears were pricked forward. Sir Nigel had to restrain him to keep him from launching into a gallop. Will and Alia's horses had picked up on Abacus' excitement. They too had to be restrained from proceeding at too fast a pace and tiring too quickly. The three sped down the road, scarcely noticing the beauty of the countryside and the surrounding forest. Will's pulse quickened as his nervousness and excitement grew. He looked at his sister beside him. Alia's eyes were bright with excitement and a grin was plastered on her face. She appeared eager for the adventure. Alia, glancing at Will beside her, noticed her brother looking her way.

"I am ready for this," she said with excitement. "Either we outwit or outfight them, but we will save the king."

After two hours of steady riding, the group rounded a bend. Up ahead, they could see Brian standing at the side of the road signaling them to stop. After they had reached him and dismounted, Brian spoke.

"They are less than a mile ahead in a small clearing just off of the road. From here you should stay off the road and you can shorten the distance by cutting carefully through the woods," Brian said. "A few of them are in the forest near the camp gathering wood for the roasting fire, so we must take great care."

It was agreed that Brian would lead them to within sight of the Mordlock's camp, then would return to stay with the horses. Will and Alia tied their horses as well as those of Brian and Gwen in a small patch of grass just off the road. Brian guided the group forward as they made their way carefully through the woods following a narrow game trail. Sir Nigel followed Brian leading Abacus behind him with Alia and Will single-file behind them. Slowly, the sun dipped below the tree tops behind them. Shadows grew long and the sky darkened. Soon they could hear strange noise and chanting ahead. Through the trees they could also see a glimpse of light. Fire! They were heading into a slight wind and the breeze carried the faint sharp smell of smoke.

"I hope we're not too late," remarked Alia. "Maybe we should hurry."

"Lady Gwen is watching from a nearby tree," said Brian. "She will not let them carry the king to the fire without a fight. You should take care so that you can surprise the Mordlocks."

With the camp in sight, Brian turned back to be with the horses. Will and Alia moved up closer to finalize their plans with Sir Nigel.

"I will take Abacus and return to the road," he whispered. "Meanwhile, you two disappear and get as close to the king and Alfred as you can. Once I start the distraction, it will be up to you two to free the king and Alfred and get them safely away. We will meet back at the horses."

Sir Nigel moved off, leading Abacus back toward the road. In a minute he had vanished from sight.

Will turned to Alia. "Ready for this?

"As ever," replied Alia.

Alia led as they made their way nearer to the camp. They stopped briefly and Will whispered the disappearing charm. A squirrel in a nearby tree blinked. He had been keeping a close eye on two humans who had been moving under his tree. He was about to give out a warning call to alert his neighbors when the humans disappeared. Slightly confused, he returned his attention to the Mordlocks in the distance and the scent of wood burning.

Alia led with Will following, one hand on the shoulder of his sister. It was a bit odd making their way through the forest without being able to see themselves in reference to their surroundings; however, Alia fell into a smooth pace and led them silently along the game trail toward the encamped Mordlocks. Soon they could see details of the camp. There were a few open shelters with large tarps hung from ropes between trees acting as protection from any rain. There were two guards, one posted on the far side of the camp on the path that led from the nearby road and the other posted between them and the camp on the path that ran through the woods. These paths were wider than the game trails but not near as wide as the road.

In the center of the camp was a large pile of wood and brush. The king and Alfred were tied to a tree next to the woodpile. It appeared that the wood gathering Mordlocks had returne to the camp. A large wood pile stood between two fires. Each had a large roasting spit across its steadily burning fire. Mordlocks surrounded each fire. A few appeared to be stirring large pots that sat directly in the fires.

"Hmm," murmured Alia. "Looks like quite the meal. I'm going to be sorry to spoil their feast. NOT." She smiled and glanced back at Will. Then she remembered that she was invisible and neither could see the other.

Alia led them around the camp so that they could come in from woods on the side where the tree held the king. They made a wide detour around the guard on the trail, then carefully made their way through the brush toward the tree. The chanting from the Mordlocks near the two fires became louder and covered any small noises Alia and Will may have made in the brush. Soon they were within a few feet of the king and Alfred.

"Psst, Alfred, it's Will," said Will. He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard above the chanting Mordlocks.

"Huh? What?!" said Alfred, looking side to side toward where the sound had come from but seeing nothing. Meanwhile, the king simply stared toward the fires.

"It's a long story," said Will. "But I am here with Alia. We are invisible, but we have come to free you. Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen are here too."

"Where?" said Alfred, catching on remarkably quickly. He kept his gaze facing the fires and was careful not to be caught looking around.

"You will see or hear Sir Nigel shortly," said Will. "You will need to be ready to move with the king."

"Majesty," said Alfred quietly whispering to the king. "Perhaps it is time to leave this party. Are you ready to come with me?"

"All right, Alfred, you know best," mumbled the king, still staring into the fires.

"It is time to prepare the meat for the feast!" cried out one of the Mordlocks breaking away from the group around one of the fires. He was slightly larger than the others and appeared to be in charge.

"You two," he said, indicating two others, "tie one human on each spit. Then add more wood to the fires."

Two Mordlocks moved away from one fire and headed toward the king. Just then (just in time), there was a commotion from the road.

"Hail the camp!" a voice could be heard from the roadway. "A weary traveler is looking for company and perhaps some food. May I approach?"

Will recognized Sir Nigel's voice pretending to be a traveler unaware that this was a Mordlock camp. Sir Nigel and Abacus were still far enough down the road as to not be visible to most of the Mordlocks; however, the guard on the trail nearest the road had hidden behind a tree and carefully peered out. Suddenly he turned and quickly made his way back to the Mordlock leader.

"Sir," he said. "It is a knight. And he is alone."

"Quickly then," the leader said to the other Mordlocks. "Into the woods on either side of the trail. We will capture him too. Such a feast we will have!"

With that, the Mordlocks divided and moved into the woods on either side of the trail. Only their leader remained. He moved out of the firelight partially concealed by the shadows from the trees.

"Welcome stranger!" he said. "Approach our fires."

From where Will sat hunched next to Alfred, he could now see Sir Nigel astride Abacus coming up the trail towards the campfires and the partially hidden Mordlock leader. Sir Nigel appeared unawares and was calmly leaning forward in his saddle; however, Will noticed that Abacus' nostrils were slightly flared and his eyes were wide awake, while Sir Nigel's hand resting on the saddle pommel was only inches away from his sword hilt.

It all happened so very fast.

"Now take him, men!" cried the Mordlock leader. In an instant, the Mordlocks leapt out of the woods with weapons drawn and hurled themselves at Sir Nigel and Abacus. But Sir Nigel's sword was out an instant faster. As Abacus whirled and struck out with fore- and hind-feet, the sword flashed, severing limbs and heads. And at the same time, arrows flew from high up in a tree into the bodies of the attacking Mordlocks.

It was time for Alia and Will to do their part. With his hand firmly on Alia's back, Will murmured the reverse invisibility charm. The king was startled as both Will and Alia materialized in front of him, but Alfred was ready.

"See here sire, our friends have arrived," he said softly as Alia cut the ropes that bound them to the tree.

The Mordlock leader, who was truly a giant and fierce-looking Mordlock, had just begun to head toward where his men were battling Sir Nigel (with Abacus doing his part to severely maim Mordlocks). The Mordlock, seeing Alia and Will materialize and free the king and Alfred turned toward them. He was so close to them that Will could see the red flare erupt in his eyes as the leader spied them.

"Four to die!" the Mordlock leader cried, raising his sword as he charged directly at them.

In a flash, three things happened. Will, hoping to gain some small advantage, let go of Alia and grabbed the king and Alfred while at the same time shouting the invisibility charm. Alia raised her sword in an attempt to block the Mordlock's sword that was just beginning its descent toward the place where Will, Alfred, and the king had most recently been. And the last and surest thing. An arrow flashed from the trees and buried itself deeply into the chest of the Mordlock leader.

And just as quickly as it has started, the commotion was over. The Mordlock leader crumpled dead to the ground. Alia's upraised sword caught the huge descending sword and turned it aside though in fact it had lost much of its momentum when the Mordlock leader was felled by the arrow. And dead Mordlocks lay in clusters with arrows protruding from them and heads and limbs not quite still connected to the appropriate places. Then small wisps of smoke began to curl from the fallen Mordlocks. The smoke increased as the bodies disappeared, leaving only a small pile of ashes where each body had lain barely visible in the light from the two burning fires.

"Well, THAT'S done," Gwen's voice sounded from up in the trees from where the arrows had been flying.

"Yes, thanks Lady Gwen," said Sir Nigel, sitting rather calmly on a blowing but steady Abacus. "And thanks to you, Will and Alia. That worked out rather well."

Will's mind was still spinning, filled with images of a whirling Abacus with hooves flying, Sir Nigel with his blade flashing, and a storm of arrows zipping from the trees while Mordlocks fell pierced and cleaved to the ground all around. Alia now looked around. Where there had been Mordlock bodies everywhere, all that remained were a few small piles of ashes with tiny tendrils of smoke still wafting upward.

"You're welcome," replied Alia. Though under her breath she spoke to Will. "Not sure they really needed us for that."

"Yes," agreed Will, still whispering. "Remind me ALWAYS to be on THEIR side in any sort of fight."

"Are we leaving yet?" the king's confused voice mumbled aloud. He seemed to scarcely have been aware of the incredible altercation that had just taken place.

"Yes, sire," answered Alfred. "We will travel with these nice people."

Then Will remembered and a thrill went up his spine.

"We have the mushrooms!" he said, speaking directly to Alfred.

At first Alfred did not quite understand. But quickly the light of realization flashed in his eyes and a small smile touched his lips.

"Really?" he said. A question but still hoping to believe. "Can I see?"

Will opened his pack and got out the small pouch that held the mushrooms that he had harvested what was in fact only a few days previous but what seemed ages ago. He handed the pouch to Alfred. Alfred poured the contents of the pouch into his hand. Three tiny blue mushrooms with distinctive black dots fell into his upturned hand.

"It's true," Alfred gasped. "This is what we need to cure the king." Without another word, he began to prepare the mushrooms. From somewhere within his cloak he produced a tiny bowl and small pestle and began to grind up the mushrooms, adding a small amount of water. In the meantime, Lady Gwen searched the Mordlock camp and returned with a small teapot. In a short time, the mushroom tea was brewing and a cup was poured for the king.

"Sire, Ben, drink this," said Alfred, placing both of the king's hands around the warm cup of mushroom tea.

The king took a small sip. Then a larger one. Then drank the contents down. Nothing happened while Will watched for any sign of change. The stooped man with the glazed confused look in his eye sat hunched with an empty cup held between both hands. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the king's body seemed to change where he sat. Like a parched flower blooming after a spring rain, the figure appeared first to straighten, then to lose its dusty, scraggy appearance. Color filled his face and the cloudiness disappeared from his eyes. Even his clothes lost their dusty appearance as if the royal threads themselves had recovered from the enchantment. The king rose from where he was seated and looked around the light of recognition in his eyes.

"Alfred, Sir Nigel, and Lady Gwendolyn, what a pleasant surprise! Where am I? And who are these guests?" he said, indicating Will and Alia. His voice was now deep and warm with no hint of confusion.

"Welcome back sire," said Lady Gwen. "We have much to tell you."

"But first, we must eat," said Sir Nigel. "And Brian has caught up to us just in time. Who's hungry?"

Will and Alia discovered that they were famished. Brian, they found out, had not remained with the tethered horses. In his sparrow-hawk form, he had come to check on the progress of the fight. Seeing that Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen had things well in hand (with Will and Alia in assistance, of course), he returned to retrieve the horses. He had come upon the group just after the king had returned to his old self. In short order, a few supplies were unpacked and the group sat down to eat. Once Will and Alia had been properly introduced, Sir Nigel filled the king and Alfred in on what had transpired in the kingdom during their disappearance.

"My father told me that Monar Rothwild and Aldor Capron were in the small group of Mordlock leaders whose bodies we did not find," said the king. "We assumed or rather hoped that they had fled through the door to their world before it was sealed. They must have been trapped on this side in Alderwood. Once they found the portal to the world of Will and Alia, they must have been able to locate the map and the guiding crystal. Now they are going to attempt to open the door and again attack the kingdom of Alderwood. We must be ready to defend ourselves."

"We must formulate a plan, your majesty," said Sir Nigel.

"Yes," agreed the king, nodding. The fog had completely cleared. Now excitement and determination shone from crystal clear brown eyes. "Sir Nigel, Alfred, and I will return to the castle to prepare the knights and the people. Lady Gwendolmyr, Brian, Will, and Alia must proceed to try to find and catch the Mordlocks to keep them from opening the door. If they are not successful, we must be ready to do battle. It is a few hours till dawn. Take the time to get a bit of rest. The days ahead will require much of you"

And, with that, the group broke up. Quickly, a small camp was set up and they all laid down for a few hours of rest.

# Chapter 12. Finding the Portal

The first hint of sun was just appearing over the mountains to the east when the group rose. After a quick breakfast, they separated, with King Benjamin, Alfred, and Sir Nigel heading back toward Alderwood castle. The King and Alfred rode the horses of Lady Gwen and Brian. The plan was for Lady Gwen and Brian in hawk form to scour the forests looking for signs of Mordlocks while Will and Alia on their horses, headed in what was believed to be the general direction of the portal to Mordomum, the Mordlock's world.

Will and Alia headed north following a trail that had initially led from the Mordlock's camp. The day was sunny with just a few clouds scattered across the sky. A slight breeze was blowing from the north. The woods were cool and slightly damp with morning dew still clinging to mosses and ferns growing on the forest floor. They saw almost no wildlife and heard little birdsong. It was almost as though the denizens of the forest knew of the upcoming dangers and were waiting with baited breath for the outcome. For a few hours, they rode in silence. Then Alia noticed a speck high up in the sky.

"There," she said, pointing at the speck, which was growing larger. In a few minutes, they could make out a small gray and brown hawk that was Brian circling overhead. Then it dove into the nearby forest. Shortly, Brian came walking out from the spot into which the hawk had disappeared.

"That still amazes me," whispered Alia to Will as Brian approached.

"We've found their campsite," said Brian excitedly. "It is a few hours away from here. It was empty, but the embers from the fire were not yet cold. Lady Gwen is searching for the Mordlocks and I will rejoin her soon. See that mountain peak to the northwest? The highest one? The one with snow on top and no trees on the top one-fourth," he said pointing to the peak way off in the distance. "If you head for that peak, you will be headed in the direction of the camp. I will return to help Lady Gwen find the Mordlocks and then will find you. Go as fast as you can. Once we find them, we will meet up and form a plan."

And, with that, he turned and leapt skyward, instantly changing into his sparrow hawk form and was soon just a speck in the distance.

Alia and Will picked up their pace on horseback in the direction that Brian had indicated. They were following a mix of game trails and forest paths only occasionally leaving paths to forge directly through the forest. The underbrush was fairly sparse and they managed to continue to move swiftly in the direction of the distant mountain. The combination of concentrating on the direction of their travel while dodging low-hanging limbs and maintaining speed left them no time to make plans for the upcoming encounter. After a couple hours of travel, they paused briefly on a high hilltop to rest. They paused in a small copse of trees hoping to keep out of site from anyone while at the same time looking to catch sight of any activity in the forests below. Their hilltop was such that it gave them a sweeping view of their surroundings. Behind them they could see tree-covered hills while, in the distance, they could see mountains rising. The snowcapped peak that they were heading toward loomed closer thanks to the distance over which they had travelled.

Alia was the first to spot their comrades returning.

"There!" she said, pointing toward two tiny specks in the distance. "It looks like they are both coming back."

Sure enough, the two specks rapidly became recognizable as the hawks could be seen making a beeline for the hilltop on which Will and Alia rested with their horses. Both birds plunged into the canopy just several yards below the hill top and Gwen and Brian emerged from the brush moving quickly up the path to meet Will and Alia.

"We have found them, but I fear we are too late," said Gwen. Both she and Brian wore deep frowns on their faces. The portal is open and Mordlock troops have begun to move through."

"Then our mission has changed," said Will. "We must find a way to close and seal the door."

"Agreed," said Gwen as both Alia and Brian nodded their assent. "We must limit the number of Mordlock troops that enter into this world or the king and his knights will have no chance to save Alderwood."

"What is the situation at the portal?" asked Alia.

"There is a small clearing in front of the portal, which is about one quarter of the way up the mountain. Only two Mordlocks at a time can come through, but there is a steady stream of Mordlocks moving through the portal. They have cut a path from the clearing and begun to assemble at the base of the mountain in a field about a quarter of a mile down from the clearing. The guiding crystal is no longer in the cairn of rocks situated several yards from the portal door."

"What must we do to close the portal?" asked Alia.

"First, you must understand how the door works," said Gwen. "The key simply locks or unlocks the door from the fully open or closed position. When the door is fully opened or closed, it disappears. It is not possible to find the keyhole without the illumination provided by the crystal. The crystal actually has two functions. The first is to illuminate the location of the keyhole in the door. Second, when the crystal is placed in the cairn, the door moves to the opened or closed position. If the crystal is removed from the cairn, the door stops moving. The crystal must remain in the cairn until the door is fully closed. Once the crystal is placed in the cairn, reciting the spell inscribed on the cairn causes the stone door to slide open. Reciting it in reverse causes the door to slide shut. Not just anyone can work the spell. Only those who have the ability to do magic in Alderwood can recite the spell and have it work. So what we must do is find the guiding crystal and the key; replace the crystal in the cairn; allow the door to close; then lock the door and escape with the crystal and the key."

"But, Saydon Nemscally originally cast the spell" exclaimed Alia. "How do we find him in time?"

"The important thing is that Will can do magic," replied Gwen. "He will be able to recite the spell to close the door."

"How do we go about recovering the guiding crystal and the key?" asked Alia.

Brian spoke. "Both Aldor Capron and Monar Rothwild are in the headquarters tent in the camp that is a quarter of a mile from the door. I have seen Aldor wearing the key and I am certain that the crystal is in the main tent."

"IF we can get the key and the crystal, what happens if we destroy them?" asked Will.

"Portals and their doors have existed as long as anyone can remember," answered Gwen. "Some, like the portal from your world to Alderwood, have been modernized using magic, but many have one or more objects along with a charm, which restricts their opening or closing. Losing the charm or destroying any of the objects might make the portal disappear or could allow it to be permanently open. No one knows. That is probably why the Mordlocks did not destroy them when they opened the door to the portal. Once the portal is closed, the key will return to the castle and the crystal will return to Amadeus Weldon. If we can recover the map, that too can go back to Amadeus."

"We must formulate a plan that utilizes each of our skills and abilities," said Gwen.

And so, the two Accipitrians, Brian and Gwen, along with Will and Alia, after some discussion, formulated the plan to close the portal.

The group agreed to a small meal and a short rest before proceeding to allow darkness to fall. Will was restless. He kept turning the plan over in his mind, looking for weaknesses and considering alternatives. He thought that his sister, Alia, must be doing much the same because Alia continually tossed and turned and mumbled as she napped fitfully.

At midnight, the small group rose and packed up their camp. Will and Alia shared their horses with Brian and Gwen. As they rode toward the Mordlock camp, the terrain became hilly as the forest began to meet the mountain. In an hour, they had come as close to the Mordlock camp as they dared ride. Quietly, they secured their horses in a small area surrounded on three sides by mountain rock then carefully camouflaged the entrance.

"The camp is just over the next hill," whispered Gwen. "Follow me."

Quickly she led the group through the forest that covered the hill. As they climbed steadily up the hill, the brush became thinner and the trees smaller still. As they arrived at the top of the hill, the tops of the trees were only a few feet above their heads.

Will and Alia simultaneously gasped as they looked down at the assembling Mordlocks. The lights from campfires filled the sizeable meadow below.

"There must be at least two to three thousand!" whispered Alia in alarm.

"And more as we speak," replied Brian, pointing to a well-lit spot on the mountainside up from the camp.

Will looked at the spot to which Brian had pointed. He could barely make out the tiny figures passing two by two through the portal and descending down the mountain into the camp.

"All the more important that we get that portal closed," said Gwen. "Brian and I will do what we need to do while you two recover the key and the crystal."

And, with that, Alia and Will moved off toward the camp while Brian and Gwen began their preparations.

Before they had walked far, Will spoke. "I know it makes it harder for us to travel together, but I think we need to become invisible here. There may be some wandering patrols and if they should spot us, it could ruin our chances."

"I agree," said Alia, nodding. "And see if the book has anything to hide our scent; those Mordlocks seem to have a keen sense of smell."

Before reciting the invisibility charm, which he knew by heart, Will dug out the charms book and began to page through it.

"Ah, here we go, this is perfect," he said. "This will make us smell like a campfire. We'll blend right in."

Reaching out, he caught hold of Alia's sleeve and whispered " _Disapero_ ," followed by "Olfacto Cindero."

Now neither Will nor Alia could see one another, but a pleasant smoky smell blended with the breeze coming from the Mordlock campfires.

The two made their way closer to the Mordlock campfires occasionally moving off the path to be out of the way as Mordlock scouts, in ones and twos, passed by. Soon, they were at the edge of the brush line looking at a large tent set up to one side of the cooking fires. Several Mordlocks were filling large trays with meat from the cooking fires then disappearing into the tent. A few other Mordlocks were filling pitchers from a steaming caldron and they too disappeared into the tent.

Alia and Will made their way to the darkest side of the tent opposite from the entry flap then peeked through a rent in one of the seams between the tent panels. In the center of the tent was a huge long wooden table with benches along each side. Twenty or thirty Mordlocks sat on each side now jostling at the plates of meat that had been fetched from the nearby cooking fires and placed in a line along the center of the table. Pitchers of steaming brew also sat along the table and were being used to fill the goblet that sat before each Mordlock. As they watched, a chant began, followed by loud thumping and banging on the table with fists and capped off with everyone taking a large sampling from their goblet, then slamming the goblets in unison on the table. This was followed by a loud roar and the eating began.

Outside, off to their right, the light of a torch being lit suddenly flared. Two Mordlocks, having just exited one of the larger tents not far away, headed over to the feast tent. Will and Alia watched as the two rather large Mordlocks strode side by side and entered the feast tent. Will and Alia quietly returned to the hole in the tent fabric to observe what was happening.

Will noticed that the two Mordlocks were about one and a half times the size of even the largest Mordlock at the table. As the two Mordlocks entered the feast tent, they were spied by the Mordlocks at the table, who all rose in unison and became quiet. The two Mordlocks moved to the head of the table and stood in front of two unoccupied stools. Will noticed that one had an especially elongated nose with small piercing eyes while the other had a large ragged mane with large wolfen ears. As they watched, the one with the large mane picked up a goblet and raised it in a salute to the men at the table then to the other Mordlock who had arrived with him.

"Here's to my brother warrior, Aldor Capron, who has led us in the undoing of the kingdom and world of Alderwood."

The Mordlock with the elongated nose rose in response and, raising his goblet, saluted the one who had just spoken.

"And here's to brother Monar Rothwild who will soon lead these captains and their men in the conquest of the kingdom of Alderwood. Soon our people will enjoy the fruits of this new land!"

The Mordlocks seated at the table roared in response and raised their cups to return the salute then all took huge gulps from their cups and slammed them down on the table.

"Well, no trouble finding Aldor Capron and Monar Rothwild," quipped Alia as they view the scene. "And they are feasting as Gwen predicted, so we've got our plan."

Carefully and as quietly as possible, the two crept outside around the tent to the large caldron of drink that hung over the fire near the entrance flap to the tent. Though with the noisy growls and chanting that had begun, our two would have to have been clumsy indeed to have been overheard by the feasting Mordlocks inside the tent. The caldron, full of bubbling liquid was the source of the drink for the feast. Removing a small flask from his pack, Will poured its contents into the caldron.

"I sure hope that this sleeping potion works," he said.

Lady Gwen said that it's a very old potion passed down from her ancestors," said Alia. "She was certain it would work, just not for how long."

The two quietly moved back to the open seam in the tent flap and watched as the feast continued with more growling and chanting at the table led by the large Mordlocks, Aldor Capron and Monar Rothwild seated at its head. Periodically, one of the Mordlocks seated at the table would exit the tent and return with another large pitcher of steaming brew, which would serve to replenish the rapidly emptying cups of their comrades. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the noise at the table began to get quieter as one-by-one, the Mordlocks at the table slumped in their places dead asleep. Alia nudged Will and pointed toward where Aldor Capron sat at the head of the table. They could see that Aldor's head hung forward resting on his huge paw-like hand. From his neck hung a ribbon from which dangled an object.

"The key!" whispered Will. "Let's go."

Alia pulled a small knife from her pocket then carefully slit the rent in the tent fabric so that it was just large enough for them to enter. Slowly they crept into the tent and moved carefully to the head of the table. By now both Aldor and Monar's heads were on the table and they were sound asleep. Along the length of the table, a few Mordlocks still supported their heads in their hands but all were just short of joining the head Mordlocks in their elixir-induced slumber.

Will removed the disappearing charm so that he and Alia could coordinate their actions. Alia again produced the knife from her pocket and handed it to Will as they moved next to the sleeping Aldor Capron. Even slumped over on the table, the sleeping Mordlock's head was just above that of Alia standing fully upright, but the key hung down, making the ribbon an easy reach fore her. Alia grasped the key and pulled it slightly away from the sleeping Mordlock, Will quickly severed the ribbon and Alia grasped the key and stuffed it into her pocket.

Suddenly, the Mordlock snorted and his head rose slightly. Will and Alia froze. But the Mordlock returned to his former position as both Will and Alia breathed a sigh of relief. Quickly they made their way back through the hole in the tent wall.

"Now to find the crystal," said Will. "I am thinking that the large tent that they came from has to be where to start."

As the two headed to the tent from which the Mordlocks had come, Will noticed that there were guards on either side of the entrance.

"Let's try around back" he whispered.

As they followed the tent around from the guarded entrance, Will could see that there were two smaller tents attached at the back.

"Let's try one of these," he said.

As the tents were pegged firmly into the ground, allowing no room to simply maneuver under the hanging tent walls, again, Alia used her knife to separate the seam between tent flaps, making an opening just large enough for them to squeeze through.

This smaller tent obviously served as a travelling residence for one of the Mordlock leaders. On one side was a huge pile of furs that served as a sleeping area. Next to the sleeping area was a rack that held armor and several brutal-looking objects that were obviously weapons. Alia, immediately drawn to the weapons, began to examine them in more detail, but Will, heading toward the doorway to the larger tent, called to her.

"Focus, Alia! We need to find the guiding crystal."

Quickly (but reluctantly), Alia turned and followed Will into the larger tent.

Inside the larger tent, there was a large table, smaller than the table at the feast but surrounded by a number of wooden stools. At the head of this table were two larger more decorative chairs. Behind these chairs and facing the table was a slightly raised platform on which sat two objects. One was a large chart. The second was a rather simple. The rolled up map lay on the counter below the stand that held an ornate crystal.

"The guiding crystal," whispered Will excitedly. "We've found it!"

"Look at the chart," said Alia. "Looks like they have been planning."

Will recognized the calm in his sister's voice. It was the calm that set in when they were about to undertake truly difficult tasks. He looked at the chart. There was a depiction of the castle of Alderwood in the lower corner. In the field in front of the castle were depicted rows and rows of men, Mordlock troops no doubt accompanied by some sort of assault machines.

Will gulped, "It looks like they plan to attack the castle directly."

"Yes," replied Alia. "No messing about in the countryside. Direct attack on the castle. With thousands of Mordlocks. And the castle has what, fifty knights? Well, the sooner we get the portal closed, the sooner we know what the true odds will be."

Will removed the guiding crystal from its stand. He grabbed the map and thrust both into the knapsack that Brian had lent him. Then he murmured the disappearing charm. Will and Alia quickly exited from the tent. Moving as quietly as possible, they left the Mordlock's camp. Remaining invisible, they moved through the forest between the camp and the portal, remaining parallel to the path where a steady line of Mordlocks moved two by two from the portal to the staging area of the camp. Shortly, they arrived and stopped at edge of the forest near the clearing by the portal.

The empty cairn for the guiding crystal stood in the middle of the clearing outside of the portal. On either side of it stood two Mordlock guards. The path along which the arriving Mordlock troops moved curved several feet from it as a steady stream of Mordlocks made their way down the hill and through the forest to the camp. Each cohort of Mordlocks carried large wooden pieces that were obviously parts to some sort of assault machines. Between the cohorts, larger structures on wheels were being pulled by teams of four ponderous, horned animals. These structures were clearly the bases on which the assault machines would be assembled. As Gwen had indicated, the door of the portal was not visible. Once it had rolled aside to expose the portal, it had again disappeared into the stony face of the mountain. Will and Alia, both still invisible, separated. Alia moved up near the open portal itself where she surmised the portal door rested while Will stayed in the brush near the cairn.

Will removed the small whistle that Brian had given him from his pocket and blew on it twice. The whistle emitted the call of a small night bird that inhabited the forest. It was a signal to Gwen and Brian that Will and Alia had returned and were ready to begin the final stage of the plan to close the portal.

Suddenly, a small fire started partway into the forest several yards from the edge of the portal clearing. This had been preceded by a flaming arrow, but the flight of the arrow was so swift as to almost be missed. The attention of many of the Mordlocks marching down the path was drawn to the fire. There were two assault machines on the path and the effect on the large beasts pulling the assault machines was a bit more pronounced as they stamped their feet and started to move off the path away from the fire. They were quickly assailed by Mordlocks wielding large staffs, who moved them back in place.

As soon as the fire started, Will began his move toward the cairn.

Suddenly the fire enlarged as the brush piles that Brian and Gwen had surreptitiously assembled caught fire.

Now the attention of almost all the Mordlocks was drawn to the fire. Some moved to put it out while several moved to assist the Mordlocks managing the beasts, which were clearly distraught and determined to move away from the fire.

Then several things happened almost at once. Several more of the concealed brush piles near the first one burst into flame. More troops moved to put out the fires and deal with the beasts that were pulling the assault machines through the lines of troops down the path toward the camp and away from the flames. Horns sounded from the camp below and the cry arose "Intruders, they have the key!" The sleeping potion had worn off and the Mordlocks from the feast were raising the alarm. Almost at the same time, a series of flaming arrows flew to spots in the woods all around the Mordlock camp. Suddenly, there were dozens of small fires all around the Mordlock camp. The beasts pulling the assault machines had initially moved down the trail toward the camp to get away from the fire, now they stampeded in circles trying to avoid the small fires that seemed to be all around. Mordlocks moved in a frenzied rush to contain the beasts and to snuff out the fires before they could endanger the camp.

As soon as he heard the cries from the camp below, Will knew what was happening. He moved between the Mordlocks guarding the cairn and, removing the crystal from under his cloak, slammed it into the slot at the tip of the cairn.

The tip of the crystal caught the light of the two moons over Alderwood and projected it at the mountain wall next to the portal illuminating the keyhole.

Alia, having guessed correctly as to the location, moved a just a few steps, then inserted the key into the now visible keyhole. Will read the charm on the cairn backwards.

The huge stone portal door became visible, shuddered, and began to slide closed!

While most of the Mordlock troops were distracted by the fires, the two Mordlock guards next to the cairn were immediately aware that the crystal had been inserted and the portal door was closing. They were well trained and, although they could not see Will standing right beside the cairn, they both reached to pull the crystal from the cairn.

Twin arrows streaked from the trees nearby and buried themselves deep in the chests of the Mordlock guards. Both guards fell to the ground dead.

Will could not see them but he knew that Gwen and Brian had targeted the guards as planned.

Several Mordlocks nearest the door heaved at the stone in an attempt to stop its progress. To no avail. The door continued to slide closed, the portal opening steadily diminishing in size. A group of Mordlocks carrying a huge timber that was part of the assault machine ran to the portal and wedged the timber between the closing door and the opening of the portal to halt the steadily closing stone door. There was a large crack as the timber fractured and fell to the ground. The stone door closed shut sealing the portal.

Will pulled the crystal from the cairn and thrust it back under his cloak where it again became invisible. Alia removed the key from the keyhole and put it back in her pocket. Alia made her way along the mountain face to the forest at the edge of the clearing while Will did the same though with much stopping and starting as he dodged among the harried Mordlocks.

Arriving at the agreed-upon meeting spot, Will felt around until his hand fell upon the shoulder of his still invisible sister.

"Good work," said Alia.

"Yeah, you too," replied Will.

With Alia leading and Will following one hand lightly resting on his sister's shoulder, the two made their way steadily into the forest, away from the portal. After moving a sufficient distance from the portal and the commotion coming from the agitated Mordlocks, Will whispered the reversing spell and the two were no longer invisible. They were then able to make their way much faster to where they had left their horses. Brian and Lady Gwen were standing nearby.

"Well done, you two," said Gwen smiling.

"We certainly couldn't have done it without you two," replied Will as Alia nodded her assent.

"That may have been the easy task," said Gwen, her brow now furrowing. "There are several thousand Mordlocks on this side of the portal along with their attack machines. We must get word to the castle and prepare as best we can. I will fly on ahead to give the king and his knights as much warning as possible. You three must return to the castle as swiftly as possible."

With that, she disappeared into the woods. A few seconds later, a gray hawk flew out of the forest and into the sky, making its way in the direction of the castle.

"We have less than a full day's ride to return to the castle," said Brian "And, though no serious damage was done, I'll bet we have at least another day or so before the Mordlocks can make it to the castle plain. The sooner we get home, the sooner we can begin to help."

"Let's go," said Alia, leaping into the saddle.

With Brian sharing Will's horse, the three made their way back to the main road, then pushed their horses to a gallop as they hastened to return to the castle.

# Chapter 13. Preparing Castle Defenses

Brian, Will, and Alia made their way along the road to the castle as fast as they could. The nearer they got to the castle, the more clogged with people the road became. Word had spread that a Mordlock army was in the kingdom preparing to attack and it looked like everyone from the villages in the countryside was making their way to the castle for protection. Most people, it seemed, grabbed food and something to serve as a weapon, and hurried to be within the castle walls.

As they neared the castle, they rode through the large field in front of the castle. They could see hundreds of people working in the fields along with several of the knights. The people appeared to be digging shallow trenches then covering them up again. Overall, the field looked slightly lumpier but evidence of trenching had been covered up. Soon they were crossing the drawbridge and through the main gate. Inside was a whirlwind of activity. People were being directed to all parts of the grounds within the castle. The king had formulated a plan both to shelter everyone and to make sure that everyone had something to do in defense of the castle. Shortly after they dismounted, they met up with Sir Nigel.

"What's going on in the field?" inquired Alia.

"That is our first line of defense and hopefully a bit of a surprise for the Mordlocks," replied Sir Nigel. "We all have things to do to prepare against attack. Gwen is out watching over the approaching Mordlocks. You three can be most helpful in seeing that some other castle defenses are as prepared as possible."

Each of them was given a list of tasks by Sir Nigel and soon all three were busy working with the arriving villagers to shore up the castle's defenses. They worked steadily throughout the day.

Evening arrived all too soon. Exhausted, Will and Alia joined Sir Nigel, Brian, King Godfrey, and the other knights for a late meal in the central hall. As they were finishing their dinner, Lady Gwen arrived through the doors at the entrance to the central hall. All eyes followed her as she made her way to where the king sat at the head of the table.

Will could see that there was a slight frown on her still beautiful face.

"The lead Mordlocks are a day out, with the main body of troops a half day behind them."

"Does that include the attack machines that will be used to scale the walls?" asked the king.

"Yes," replied Gwen.

"And how many Mordlock troops do you estimate?" asked the king.

"Four thousand," answered Gwen, the furrow on her brow deepening slightly.

Rather than any sounds of dismay from the knights, there was a noticeable silence. They all knew that there was a total of about 50 knights. Including pages and squires, there were 150 in the knights' contingent. Guards and soldiers added another 100. There were 500 able-bodied villagers, but these were farmers and tradespeople, skilled men and women, but not fighters. They could be used to put out fires and supply the knights but could not be asked to go directly against the Mordlocks.

"We know from history that the Mordlocks are not patient. They do not have a siege mentality," began the king. "They will assemble on the field below then bring up their machines to attack the castle walls. We must make every effort to decrease their numbers before they can assemble to attack. To that end, knights will go out tomorrow to meet the Mordlocks advancing ahead of the main body. We have the advantage that Mordlocks are hand fighters, not archers, so knights will attack Mordlocks with bows and arrows. Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain will be on horseback to act as diversions and attract Mordlocks while Brian and Lady Gwen will help to locate the bands of Mordlocks." He turned to Will. "I understand that you have a book of spells and charms. Is there anything there that can help us improve castle defenses?

All eyes turned to Will as he began to speak. "There are two things that I have learned from using the book. The first is that every time I open the book, solutions appear that apply to the problem at hand. To that end, I have looked in the book today and it has offered me a spell that, the more I think about it, the more I believe it might come in handy."

"What is the spell?" asked Sir Nigel.

"A trenching spell," replied Will. "One that digs a ditch."

Sir Gawain and Sir Nigel instantly beamed, followed promptly by Lady Gwen, Brian, and the King.

Alia needed to ponder a moment, then she too broke into a grin. "Of course," she said, "the field in front of the castle. Random ditches will impede the wall-scaling machines from reaching the castle walls and ditches that are carefully hidden will trap Mordlocks."

"We had considered ditches," said Sir Nigel. "But we did not have enough time to dig them adequately. We settled for shallow ones that will carry oil to cause fires and smoke. But if you can work with us to put in true ditches, we will considerably slow down attacking Mordlocks. Anything that slows them makes them targets for our arrows."

Will continued, "The second thing I learned is that the book never offers spells or charms that can directly hurt someone or something. Sadly, there is nothing in the book that will make the Mordlocks die or disappear."

"Thanks to you all, the portal is sealed," said the king. "But we are left with significant numbers of Mordlocks in the kingdom. They will do their best to defeat us, recover the key, and reopen the portal. We must not let that happen. Let us all take a few hours to rest then continue with our plans to shore up the castle defenses and strike the Mordlocks who are advancing in front of the troops."

The group quietly disbanded to catch a few hours of sleep. It had been a long hard day and Will and Alia moved slowly on the way to their quarters. As they fell behind the others, Will commented to his sister.

"Something is bugging me, and I don't quite know what it is."

"You mean the fact that the odds are about 80 to 1 Mordlocks versus knights and not much better even if you count able-bodied villagers?" asked Alia.

"It's not that," replied Will, furrowing his brow. "It feels like I am forgetting something. I have been through the book of spells and have found a couple that might help but I feel like there is something else I should be doing that would help us."

"Maybe a few hours of sleep will help," said Alia as they arrived at their quarters.

As soon as their heads hit their mattresses, they were both sound asleep.

A few hours were all anyone needed. Will awoke recharged and thinking about his major task for the day. The ditches should be deeper than Mordlocks are tall, he thought; that way they will have some trouble getting out of them. And we will have to leave a pathway through the field until the knight's return. Then we can add additional ditches that make it impossible to come straight through. Also, the ditches will have to be carefully camouflaged so that they cannot be detected. Paging through the book, he found a spell that would place a thin layer of grass over each ditch. If I combine that with spells that place grass over each solid part of the field, it will all look like a normal meadow, he mused. But I am not sure how exactly to do it because I'm not sure how wide an area the spell will carry from where I touch.

After a brief meal, and seeing Sirs Nigel and Gawain ride off with the other knights with Lady Gwen and Brian circling overhead, Will proceeded to get to work. It was a learning experience for Will. At first, the ditches he made were small and not very deep. To get a satisfactory effect, he had to slowly pronounce the spell while concentrating on a certain spot. But slowly, his ability improved. Soon he could picture in his head the dimensions of the ditch, then touch the ground at one corner and a large ditch would open up once the spell was uttered. It took half the day, but by early afternoon, the whole field in front of the castle was filled with a maze of deep ditches stitched among the furrows containing oil-soaked rags and branches that the villagers had been working on the days before and had finished today. The final part took even more concentration and trial and error. Will found that, with practice, he could envision an area to be covered with sod and, placing his palm firmly on the ground and reciting the charm, could make a reasonably large plot look like a field that had just been mowed short. He then spoke with the leader of the villagers who positioned some of them around the perimeter of the field so that no one, especially the returning knights, would stumble into ditches. By the end of the day, the field was done. The main road through the field to the gate had been left untouched for the returning knights, but the rest of the field looked much like it had looked just prior to being set up for the jousting tournament.

Soon the knights began to return in small groups. As they exited the roads leading from the woods to the field, they were directed to the main road passing safely through the entrenched field. They were uniformly dirty and tired but to a man bore looks of satisfaction on their faces. They were followed at last by Sir Gawain and Sir Nigel, both looking tired but satisfied. It was their horses that had obviously worked the hardest. Sir Gawain's horse, Quandry, was visibly tired. Even the handsome Abacus looked thoroughly exhausted as the knights rode side by side down the road. Though his eyes still glowed brightly with intelligence, Abacus barely lifted his feet as he plodded through the gate and into the courtyard.

Will followed the knights in while casting final spells at several spots on the road to make the field completely crisscrossed with hidden trenches. At dinner that night, with the king and knights in attendance, Sir Nigel summarized the day.

"We have made a good dent in Mordlock numbers and eliminated close to 50 of them without losing anyone," he said. "A few of the Mordlocks were closer than we thought, barely being an hour from the gates. But Brian and Lady Gwen were sharp eyed and picked them up. We were able to set traps by either myself or Sir Gawain, making ourselves visible targets and luring the Mordlocks close to where hidden knights could take them with bow and arrow. The horses had a workout since we usually needed to appear to retreat to lead the Mordlocks into our traps. And, in a few cases with some of the larger Mordlock groups, we actually had close-up sword play. Both Quandry and Abacus are experienced in battle and thoroughly enjoyed the action but, as you could see, they will need their rest."

Lady Gwen arrived through a side door and the knights rose in deference. She was followed closely by Brian.

"What news have you?" asked the king after everyone had reseated.

"The main body of Mordlocks is making good time," she answered. They will be here by morning."

Silence fell on the group for a few seconds as everyone thought to themselves about the coming day.

"We will double the watch tonight," said the king. "Let us enjoy this evening together as it may be the last unhurried meal we have together for some time."

Conversations around the table were muted. There was some recounting of exploits of the day, but all of the knights were visibly tired. Soon, in small groups, they excused themselves and made their way to their quarters. The king and queen too took their leave as did Sir Gawain. Sir Nigel, Lady Gwen, Brian, and Will made their way through the hallways to the Gulthorn quarters. Soon everyone was in bed resting their weary bodies while thoughts of the coming battle played in their minds.

# Chapter 14. Assault on the Castle

It was very early – just before dawn in fact, that the alarm horn sounded and woke Will from a deep and restorative sleep. For a few seconds, Will forgot where he was. What was that strange deep horn sound? With a start, the memories of the past week flooded back as he threw off his covers and his feet landed on the floor in one quick movement. Alia was already up and almost dressed. Will dressed hurriedly. As they exited their room, they saw Sir Nigel and Brian dashing out the door to the castle hallways, with Lady Gwen pausing briefly at the door to wait for them.

"This way," she said, then followed quickly after Nigel and Brian.

Will and Alia followed the three making their way swiftly to one of the passages that led to a castle turret. They followed the steps upward and came out on the ramparts overlooking the front gate. The king was already there speaking to one of the guards. As they all looked out over the field, the sun was just beginning to peek over the mountains to the east and the shadows cast over the field were beginning to fade. A few clouds reflected the yellow of the rising sun as the sky began to turn to a dusky morning blue. Far out in front of them, they could see Mordlock troops in formation as they marched out of several roads that led from the woods and into the field. As each group emerged from the trees, they formed up with other groups coming along other roads and formed a single line that spanned almost the entire field. Slowly but surely, row after row of Mordlocks emerged from the field. They were advancing slowly, the front ranks making room for those behind them exiting from the woods. Even though they were at some distance from the castle, Will could still make out their general features. All were large and, even with leathery battle armor, appeared a uniform dirty dark gray with large slashes of red painted across their skin on exposed hairy faces, arms, and legs. With their large noses and ears, they appeared almost wolf-like. Each man bore a shield and either a large sword, hammer, or spear. Even from this far away, Will could hear their deep-throated chanting and catch a faint whiff of their musty smell – almost as if they had risen from a dark, dank basement after laying there for several years. Will felt a chill go down his back. As the front row moved closer and within range of the arrows of the castle defenders, Mordlock shields were suddenly raised.

"Wait for it," murmured Brian, watching with the others from the castle parapet.

"Archers hold," commanded Sir Nigel, as groups of knights and soldiers readied their bows.

The front ranks of the Mordlocks formed a row that spanned practically the whole width of the field. Followed by similar ranks, the front moved out on the field headed toward the castle. Suddenly the ground below the Mordlocks in several spots along the row opened up and several Mordlocks fell into the pits that Will had engineered. The resonant chanting was replaced by sounds of alarm and confusion as the lines halted. Lines rippled as a few of the Mordlocks who appeared to be in charge moved to the holes. Commands were barked out and wooden ladders were passed forward and lowered into the holes. A few of the Mordlocks clambered out of the holes but several had to be carried out. Mordlocks were crowded around the holes assisting those who had fallen in.

"Fire!" Sir Nigel gave the command as a flock of arrows rose in an arc then descended on the Mordlocks busily engaged around the holes. Mordlock armor is thick and strong, but the arrows of the castle defenders had been honed to razor sharpness. In addition, Mordlocks wore no armor on their heads, arms, or legs and those around the holes had lowered their shields. The effect from the falling arrows was deadly. The crowd of Mordlocks around each hole seemed to fall away as Mordlocks were struck and fell to the ground. Before the Mordlocks had figured out what was happening, a second flight of arrows had descended. Now there were sounds of surprise and alarm as Mordlocks fell wounded or dying. There were not however any cries of pain or fear. After a few barked commands from their commanders, Mordlock shields were raised and the front line retreated, taking their wounded with them even as the dead turned rapidly to ashes. An eerie silence descended.

"Now let's see what happens," commented Sir Nigel. All of those stationed along the castle battlement looked out over the field expectantly.

Soon the chanting began again. The Mordlock ranks realigned and the newly filled front row again began moving forward. But, in short order, other parts of the advancing row disappeared as more Mordlocks fell into hidden ditches. The fact that there were a series of randomly placed ditches rather than a few pits had apparently not occurred to the Mordlocks.

Again the archers were ready, and as soon as Mordlocks fell into the ditches, flights of arrows focused on those areas descended. This time, however, the Mordlocks were more disciplined. Their shields stayed raised and only those who had fallen into the holes were struck.

"They learn quickly," noted Sir Nigel.

Once more, injured Mordlocks were removed from the holes and taken to the back of the ranks. Once more, the lines reformed and the Mordlock troops advanced. This time more slowly than before. Again the earth opened at several spots in the front lines as Mordlocks stepped onto the light covering over the ditches and pitched through. This time however, only one or two Mordlocks fell into each ditch as they had been advancing cautiously. And this time Mordlocks quickly formed in front of each hole with shields raised to protect them from the arrows. Mordlocks were removed from the ditches, and this time, the whole army retreated to the edge of the field out of range of the archers.

Although it was only mid-morning, the Mordlocks appeared to have halted their assault on the castle.

"I think it has dawned on them that we have laid traps," noted the king. "They will take time to figure out a way around them. We will leave some sentinels up here to keep watch, but the rest of us can continue with preparations. I will visit the people to try to reassure them."

With that, the group disbanded leaving the castle ramparts. Sentries moved off into the castle towers where they could keep a watch over the Mordlocks. Small clusters of soldiers moved off with various knights to organize defenses.

"Let's meet here again at noon to see what's going on and plan accordingly," said Sir Nigel, moving off with Lady Gwen.

After speaking briefly with Brian, Will returned to his quarters to study the book of charms. He looked in vain for something that could be used against the attacking Mordlocks, then spent time memorizing a few spells that might help for castle defense. At noon, he went to meet the others on the castle ramparts.

"It looks like they have been busy," said Sir Nigel as the group gazed out over the field.

"I took a flight out a while ago to see what they were up to," said Brian. "Besides setting up camp, they are doing mainly two things: felling trees and collecting piles of large boulders."

In the distance they could see activity as trees at the edge of the woods were felled. From the woods, Mordlocks moved the trees piles at the edge of the field. Not one but three wide wooden roads were being built out across the field toward the castle. Will could see a team of Mordlocks, protected by others with shields, working at the front of each road to establish where ditches were located. The roads bridged across the field of ditches. Each road was wide enough for the wall-attacking machines that had accompanied the Mordlocks. One road was directed at the main castle gate while the other two were headed for the middle of the castle walls that faced the field.

"They will have to bridge the moat, but it looks like they can easily do that," said Sir Nigel.

"It does not appear that they have discovered our other surprise," the king said, looking down on the working Mordlocks.

"If they figure it out," said Sir Nigel, "we have archers ready."

They watched as the roads extended out at an alarming rate. Soon they were fully one-third of the way to the castle wall. From the woods, the huge beasts appeared pulling some sort of attack machines. Soon teams of Mordlocks were scrambling to move the machines to the side of the road, setting them up just out of range of the castle archers.

"Catapults!" the king remarked frowning. "That explains the boulders."

"Tell everyone to make sure that they are sheltered," said Sir Nigel to one of the knights who moved quickly to spread the word.

Soon enough, the onslaught began. From the three catapults, boulders came flying at the castle walls. At first they fell short, but soon they began to find their marks, striking castle walls and taking bits of wall down as they struck. Depending on its size, each boulder did only a small amount of damage, but with repeated strikes, cracks began to appear in portions of the castle wall.

"I can help here," said Will. "Brian, can you come with me?"

As they left the ramparts and made their way through the castle to one of the damaged areas accompanied by Brian, Will arrived at a spot where the damage had penetrated the castle wall. A large crack could be seen on the inside of the wall.

Will reached out and touched the crack while speaking the charm " _Reconcil muru_."

Slowly the crack closed. Will sagged against the wall.

"What's the matter?" asked Brian.

"I hadn't felt it this strongly before, but working charms takes something out of you," replied Will. "For little things, it is scarcely noticeable. But I was really tired after I made all of the ditches in the field. Wall fixing is also a bit tiring."

"So we will have to watch and wait, and have you tackle only crucial areas and before they get too big," said Brian.

"Sounds like a plan," said Will, now recovered.

They moved off to talk with some of the villagers. They set up a system where Brian would be notified of wall damage then he would call on Will when cracks were just starting to widen.

The barrage from the catapults continued throughout the day. Besides the catapulted stones which damaged walls, periodically the Mordlocks would fire flaming bundles over the walls. These would fall on the thatched roofs of the shops and houses within the castle walls. Alia took charge of the fire brigades and was busy keeping the fires from spreading.

Even with the plan for wall repair that they had devised, by early evening, Will was exhausted. He dragged himself up to the ramparts where the king, Brian, Sir Nigel, Lady Gwen, and Sir Gawain met to survey the Mordlock's progress. As they looked out, they could see that all three wooden roads had almost reached the castle moat. In addition, the beasts had been hitched to assault towers. Protected by shields from Mordlocks mounted on their backs, the beasts had advanced the towers three-quarters of the way to the moat. Columns of Mordlocks were lined up behind each tower, ready to mount the towers and assault the ramparts.

"I think it is time for stage two, your majesty," said Sir Nigel.

"Very well," replied the king.

"Arrows away!" called Sir Nigel.

The archers had been waiting, prepared since mid- day. Flaming arrows were launched aloft. Each arrow descended to a specific spot where small pots of oil had been concealed. What the villagers had been working on were shallow trenches filled with oil-soaked straw - a flammable web that stretched throughout the field. In a few seconds, flames burst from the pots, then bright lines of fire moved across the field as the oil-soaked straw ignited in the trenches. Soon a web of flames a foot high could be seen all across the field. This was accompanied by lots of thick black smoke.

Originally, the trenches were devised to disorient the charging Mordlocks. Although the Mordlocks were not charging, the smoke and fire had its affect. And, while the lines of fire were small, in several places the roads had been built across lines of straw. The fires from these lines were hot enough that the wooden roads began to smolder and burn. Many of the Mordlocks lined up behind the assault towers retreated back to the edges of the woods off of the field.

As the smoke from the fires billowed, the beasts harnessed to the assault towers began to vocalize and move back and forth, clearly disturbed by the smoke and nearby fires. As the wooden roads caught fire, Mordlock commanders could be seen giving orders to the men. The beasts were unhooked from the assault towers and turned around. The assault towers took up much of the road width, so the beasts had to be led around them, which meant that they had to be partially on the field. In one case, the Mordlocks riding on and leading a beast suddenly disappeared as the beast fell into a ditch pulling Mordlocks with them. Even though the beast fell to the bottom of the ditch, it was so large that its head could still be seen; however, the ditch was deep enough that the beast was trapped in the ditch. Mordlocks could be seen scrambling on the beast's back and out of the ditch. A volley of arrows flew down killing the beast. In a short time, the remaining Mordlocks and beasts had all retreated into the forest.

The fire from the ditches had diminished significantly, but now the roads were burning vigorously. Although the assault towers had been made to resist fires, the heat from the oily straw was enough to catch the wooden roads on fire. In several places, wooden roads spanned across the ditches that Will had created. Knights on the castle ramparts cheered as the first of the assault towers pitched over and fell into the ditches below as the burning wooden roads gave way. Soon all three towers had disappeared and the roads were blackened and crumbled.

King Benjamin Godfrey looked down and, for a second, a small smile passed across his worried countenance. "Good work," he said addressing those around him. "We have damaged them further. From past history, we know Mordlocks like to fight during the day, so we should be done for today. We will leave sentries about, but for now, let us all get some rest."

Just after dawn the next morning, Will and Alia arrived on the ramparts to see that the king as well as several knights, Brian, Sir Nigel, and Gwen were all there staring out over the field. Will glanced out and gasped. Three roads had already been built halfway out along the field. The Mordlocks had apparently worked through the night to renew their roads to the castle. Will approached Brian and Sir Nigel who were deep in conversation.

"Lady Gwen and I flew out at dawn this morning to take a look," Brian said. "Although there appear to be no more assault towers, the Mordlocks are in the woods working on huge ladders that they will use to scale the castle walls. Also they are forming some sort of battering ram and bridges for the moat. Lady Gwen is already working with the villagers to build forked sticks to push off the ladders. Sir Gawain is organizing teams to work the sticks as a ladder full of Mordlocks will not easily be moved from the wall."

"We will be prepared for the bridges, at least the first round," said Sir Nigel. "If we are patient, we can reduce the numbers of Mordlocks still further."

Throughout the day, the onslaught from the catapults continued. Will spent all of his time repairing damaged walls, but he could barely keep up. By day's end, the roads had almost reached the moat. The catapults had stopped firing, but Will and Alia were exhausted.

Lady Gwen caught up to them as they were leaving a repaired site. "Both of you must rest," she said.

Will thought she looked tired but even a tired overworked Gwen was a sight to behold. Her green eyes sparkled with fire and determination.

"You must rest up," she continued. "The Mordlocks will come and you will need all of your strength."

Reluctantly, Will and Alia returned to the Godfrey quarters. There they had a small meal and laid down to rest.

But rest was brief. It seemed to Will that he had only just laid his head on his pillow when Brian was shaking him awake.

"Will and Alia, come quickly, the attack has started again," said Brian.

They followed Brian up to the castle ramparts under a night time sky. Looking out over the field they could see that the Mordlocks, far from resting over the night, had continued to work on the wooden roads.

Lit by the two moons of Alderwood, Will could see that all three roads stretched across the field all the way to the castle moat. The Mordlock troops were lined up on the roads but well back from the moat as the barrage of boulders flung from the catapults began again. Will was quickly directed to the nearest wall breach and began using the wall repair charm. Having not fully rested, he was soon his feet and feeling even more tired than the previous day.

Suddenly, the barrage stopped. Will rushed to the castle ramparts to see what was happening. There he met Sir Nigel and several other knights calmly looking out over the field.

The Mordlocks had begun a chant and six abreast (which was how many of the large Mordlocks fit on a road) they marched toward the castle, shields raised to deflect any arrow assaults. The first four rows on each road carried a bridge, premade to span the moat. The rows behind each carried a ladder for scaling the walls. There were hundreds of ladders visible among the marching Mordlocks.

Will looked at Sir Nigel who appeared way to calm for what was coming.

"What are we . . .?" Will began his question.

"Wait," interrupted Sir Nigel. "And watch."

The Mordlock troops chant became louder as they moved closer and closer to the moat. The front ranks reached the moat and cast their bridges across the moat securing them on the other side as Mordlocks began to march across the bridges and the small space between the moat and the castle wall filled with Mordlocks.

"Now!" said Sir Nigel almost in a whisper and the knight beside him gave a signal. A single archer lit a flaming arrow and fired it directly into the moat.

For a brief second, Will was confused. Why would anyone fire a flame into a water-filled moat?

But he had been busy the day before and had missed the villagers working all day to surreptitiously pour another liquid into the moat. A liquid that now floated on the surface of the water, making it glisten under the starlit sky. And as the entire surface of the moat burst into flames, Will understood. Oil! The villagers had poured oil into the moat, which covered the water and now burst into flames. The bridges ignited and the Mordlocks on the bridges fell into the flaming moat. Mordlocks cannot swim and these quickly drowned or burned as their companions who had not crossed the bridges quickly retreated. There were only a few ladders that had made it across the moat and the Mordlocks trapped between the moat and the high castle wall barely had time to perceive what had happened much less mount an attack. Archers stationed on the ramparts fired down on the Mordlocks while at the same time, villagers dumped carts of boulders on their heads. In a short time, the 200 or so Mordlocks who had crossed the moat were dead. Small gray piles were the only thing left as dying Mordlocks quickly disintegrated to ash.

"The fire in the moat will take a while to burn itself out," said Sir Nigel. "There will be no more attacks until at least tomorrow. Rest everyone. Tomorrow the battle really starts."

Will finished making charms to repair walls, then without eating, went to bed. He fell instantly into a deep sleep.

The next morning, sunlight shining on his face woke Will. Alia was already up and gone. Quickly he dressed and went to the dining room of the Gulthorn complex. There Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen were speaking with Alia as all three were finishing their breakfast.

"Good morning," said Will, greeting them all with a tired smile. "What do you expect for today?"

"We are out of tricks," said Sir Nigel. "So today the fight starts in earnest. No doubt that they have built more bridges, so they will attack the castle walls today."

"Where do you want me?" asked Will.

"Initially, I would like you to concentrate on wall repair," said Sir Nigel. "But the barrage should be short as I think the Mordlocks will try to come over the walls not through them. We will have crews to push ladders aside before the Mordlocks can scale the walls and we will deal with small groups coming over the ramparts. They will surely attempt to ram through the gate and that is where you should be stationed. We must keep them from getting through the gate at all costs."

Their meal finished, Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen rose to leave just as Brian entered, having just returned from a flight over the Mordlock camp.

"You were right," he said, looking directly at Sir Nigel. "They have finished the battering ram and made new bridges to scale the moat. Also, we have another problem. They have larger pots for the catapults that are filled with some liquid that will, no doubt, burn. And there is a fuse on each pot."

"The fire crews will be challenged today," said Lady Gwen. "But they are organized and ready. Alia is doing double duty. She will get the fire-fighting teams started, but then we will need her on the castle wall. She is a natural with a bow and her new skill will be a welcomed addition to our group."

"Will, do you have any charms that put out fires?" asked Sir Nigel. "The gate will be your priority, but if it appears that a fire is getting out of hand, it would be good if you have some way of assisting."

Will agreed that he would consult the book and, if possible, would be ready to assist.

Their meeting was interrupted by the sounds of Mordlocks chanting, followed by trumpets from the castle ramparts calling knights to arms.

"It has begun," said Sir Nigel solemnly, as he calmly picked up his sword and followed Lady Gwen and Alia out the door into the castle hallway.

With Brian looking on, Will pulled the book of charms out from under his tunic and slowly turned its pages. By now, Will had come to the realization that the book was constantly changing. When he opened it with a problem in mind, a solution was usually offered. Sure enough, he had only gone a short way through the book when one particular charm stood out. Fire into Water, it said _Insidio aquo_. There was a small drawing that depicted what appeared to be a small storm that was half fire and half water.

"Hmm," said Will. "That should work."

"Found something?" asked Brian.

"Yes," said Will. Since I have to touch whatever it is to work the charm, I will have to be careful, but it looks as though I can put out fires when needed.

"Let's go see what's in store for today," said Brian as he picked up his bow and moved toward the door.

Will and Brian moved to join others on the castle ramparts and gazed out over the field before the castle.

The sight was impressive and a little chilling. The Mordlocks were again marching down the roads and had stopped about three quarters of the way to the moat. This time, they were carrying new bridges and the ranks behind the bridge carriers bristled with troops carrying ladders. Off in the distance, they could see the catapult crews readying their machines. Just out from the woods was a raised platform. Even from this distance, Will could make out the forms of Aldor Capron and Monar Rothwild standing against a railing as Mordlock banners fluttered overhead.

As one, all of the Mordlock troops turned to their leaders. Aldor Capron raised his sword and pointed toward the castle, then the sword flashed down. A deep-throated cry went out from the Mordlocks as they turned and, in unison, began marching in step toward the castle. Simultaneously, the catapults began to fire. This time, instead of boulders, it was flaming pots. The first few struck the top of the castle wall and, as the pots broke, the oil inside burst into flame. Soon the pots were clearing the outer castle wall and falling on the structures below. Although much of the castle itself was stone, all of the lesser buildings as well as villagers' homes within the walls had thatched roofs. These quickly burst into flames. As before, teams of villagers with buckets and blankets moved to snuff out the fires; however, they could not keep up with the rapidity of the onslaught from the catapults. Will could hear Alia's shouts below as she directed the fire-fighting teams.

"Looks like I have to go," said Will, running to the stairwell that led from the ramparts to the commotion below. Arriving at the first fire, Will waved his hand rapidly through the flames while murmuring " _Insidio aquo_." Instantly, the flames changed to raindrops and the fire was out. Villagers attending to the fire were stunned for a second but broke into smiles when they realized what had happened. A cheer went up for Will who was already dashing off to a nearby fire that threatened to get out of control.

Will was so busy putting out fires that he did not have time to watch the Mordlock attack. But Alia appeared in her place with Ben and the archers directed by Lady Gwen. The Mordlock columns rapidly reached the moat and lowered their bridges across. From the two side roads, teams of Mordlocks moved across, assembled at the base of the wall, then placed their ladders against the wall and began to ascend. Villager teams waited until a ladder was full of Mordlocks, then, using their brace poles, pushed the ladder sidewise until it fell spilling the Mordlocks on the Mordlocks below. Even with this tactic and with archers firing down on the Mordlocks, the number of ladders became more than the number of teams of villagers to push them over and knights and archers were soon battling Mordlocks as they reached top and climbed onto the castle ramparts.

On the central road, the beasts were harnessed to a huge battering ram. A large pointed stone had been lashed to the front of the ram. The Mordlocks had brought a small covered bridge that enabled them to span the moat at the site of the drawbridge that was raised. Under the protection of their portable bridge, Mordlocks worked on walls by the drawbridge and exposed the chains keeping the drawbridge raised. In a short time they had lowered the drawbridge. The beasts carrying the ram were led forward. Soon a terrific hammering could be heard as Mordlocks swung the ram crashing it against the fortified castle gate.

The assault on the castle continued throughout the day as wave after wave of Mordlocks ascended the ladders but were repelled. Will was busy assisting villagers as fires sprang up from the continued barrage of the catapults. He dashed from fire to fire interspersed with trips to mend the front gate, which shook with each blow of the battering ram, and had begun to splinter. And though the charms did the trick, each one took a little bit out of Will and, for the third day in a row, he was exhausted as the sun began to set. Once more, the Mordlocks withdrew.

Will ascended the stairs to the castle ramparts of the front wall and looked up. The evening sky of Alderwood was studded with a few clouds reflecting the setting sun. Lowering his gaze, he could see the Mordlock camps with row after row of tents. Whereas originally the forests had grown right to the edge of the field, the forests had been so decimated that the tree line had been pushed back an additional quarter of a mile. Only a few scattered trees could be seen in this area now filled with the tents and camp fires of the Mordlocks.

Gwen had just returned from a flight high over the Mordlock camp and was speaking with the King and Sir Nigel. Brian and Alia sat to one side looking thoroughly exhausted.

"We have killed many of the Mordlocks, today," said Gwen, "but many remain."

"It is a wonder that we have not yet lost anyone," said King Benjamin. "Alfred tells me that we have 5 knights and 25 villagers wounded, with about a quarter of those wounded out of action."

"We do not have enough oil for another moat fire," said Sir Nigel. "But, we should be able to fill several pots that we can dump on the Mordlocks when they attack tomorrow. As long as the gate holds, we can withstand their attack."

The next day was similar to the previous day. Waves of Mordlocks attacked and were repelled. Villagers dumped burning oil and rocks on the Mordlocks below, archers fired volleys of arrows and knights fought Mordlocks that made it to the ramparts. The barrage of firing pots slowed but Will was kept busy working charms on the gate to keep it intact. As more people became wounded, he also assisted Alfred Griggs in treating their wounds and getting them to shelter.

Halfway through the afternoon, the barrage from the catapults changed. Instead of lofting burning pots into the castle grounds, after the Mordlocks working the battering ram on the gate pulled back, the catapults began hurling huge boulders at the castle walls that held the gate. The Mordlocks then began a new assault, first repeatedly ramming the gate, then backing off to allow catapults to hurl boulders at the structures supporting the gate. Will was able to reinforce and repair the gate; however, cracks began to form all around the gate as the castle walls began to give way. Will's charms that worked well on single points of damage were not sufficient to keep the whole gate structure intact and, by the end of the day, the whole area began to show signs of giving way.

The Mordlocks had retired to their camp for the day and the King met with his knights in the main meeting hall. Lady Gwen and Brian also sat at the meeting table with Will and Alia close by.

Will looked around the table at the tired, weary, and wounded castle defenders. Fully one fourth of the knights were wounded enough that they would barely be able to fight the next day. Several could not stand.

Sir Nigel rose to report. "We have done significant damage to the Mordlock troops; however, our best guess is that there are at least three thousand of them remaining. He nodded at Brian and Gwen in acknowledgment of their recent flights high over the Mordlock troop camp. "There are several groups of Mordlocks that are quite fresh and we will expect a similar onslaught tomorrow." Then he nodded toward Will. "Efforts to maintain the integrity of the front gate have gone beyond my expectations; however, the structure is severely damaged and is beyond the reinstating power of Will's charms. Although no one has been killed, two dozen villagers, the same number of soldiers, and one-fourth of our knights are severely wounded and not available to fight."

King Benjamin Godfrey rose to address everyone in the room. He had been involved in the fighting on the ramparts and was tired, but he had taken time to wash and change clothes and he stood before everyone straight and tall, a light of determination still showing in his eyes. "I have discussed the situation with my two most trusted knights, Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain. We all feel that it is only a matter of time before Mordlocks breach the front gate and, once they get inside, it will be very difficult to protect all of the women and children. The Mordlocks are good fighters, but they are nothing without their leaders Monar Rothwild and Aldor Capron. I have discussed the possibility of killing them with a well-placed arrow with our Accipitrian colleagues." He nodded toward Brian and Lady Gwen. "But they tell me that the Mordlock leaders appear to be well protected on their platform. A killing shot from the woods would be unlikely at best. Instead, archers will fire flaming arrows on the middle of the line of Mordlocks in front of the platform. This is simply a diversion as the Mordlocks will be ready with their shields. I will lead a charge using every knight that can ride and we will attack the platform and kill Monar Rothwild and Aldor Capron. We think that, if we can kill them, the Mordlock troops may feel defeated and will retreat. The remaining knights and soldiers will man defenses on the walls with the villagers. After we ride out, the drawbridge must be burned rapidly and completely. This will prevent Mordlocks from coming through the damaged gate area. Sir Nigel will take a few people to arrange an incendiary device on the drawbridge so that it will burn rapidly." He directed his gaze at Will. "We will need you to reverse your trenching spell so that we can charge out across the field. The rest of you please take time and try to sleep. We will need you at your best tomorrow."

The king sat down. Knights rose and slowly left the room. Sir Nigel came over to where Will and Alia were sitting.

"We need every bit of oil that we can find so that we can attach pots of oil to the underside of the drawbridge. Once it is ignited, it will burn the bridge quickly. Several of the villagers are bringing what they can find from the village buildings within the castle walls. There is a storeroom for the castle lamps down next to the guard room in the dungeon area. Will you and Brian go and look in the dungeon area? I am thinking that there is at most a few barrels and you can probably find a charm that will assist you in getting them to the front gate area."

"Sure," said Will. He and Alia along with Brian moved to find the stairwell that led to the dungeon area.

As they walked, they were silent for a while. Then Alia spoke up.

"What do you think is the chance for success of the king's plan to lead a charge to the platform?"

Brian was silent for a minute as they continued to walk. Then he said simply, "It's got to work. Otherwise, this kingdom and this world as we know it will cease to exist."

The three arrived at the dungeon area and found the storeroom next to the area that held the table for guards assigned to the dungeon. There was no one else there as, with no prisoners to hold, all of the soldiers had been assigned to castle defense. Sure enough, there were two large barrels almost completely filled with oil. Will opened his book of charms.

"This will do," he said after moving through the book only a few pages. Placing his hands one on each barrel he murmured " _Quod levare_."

Both barrels rose, bobbing slightly as they floated in the air a few inches off of the floor.

"Let's see if we can push them," said Will.

He and Brian each squatted behind a barrel and began to push them through the storeroom door with Alia guiding from the front. The barrels glided easily along the floor. As they exited the storeroom, something caught Will's eye. He turned and looked at a large pile of trash that was in a corner near the guard table. Protruding from the pile were several dark sticks. Will stared at the sticks. Something tickled the back of his mind. The sticks reminded him of something. What was it? Suddenly he remembered.

Leaving his barrel he dashed up the stairs, rushing along castle hallways and into the Gulthorn quarters. He found his pack where he had tossed it in a corner of the guest room when they gad returned from finding the king. Rummaging in the bottom of the pack he found what he was looking for. There in his hand was a completely smooth black branch highlighted by a dozen delicately cut parallel lines that spiraled from one end to the other. The dragon whistle! Will could hardly contain his excitement.

Alia and Brian had followed Will in his mad dash from the dungeon. Alia took one look at what Will held in his hand and burst into a grin. Without a word, Will ran into the hallway and up the stairs. He quickly made his way to the castle ramparts. Alia was right behind him and Brian arrived a few seconds later slightly winded. They watched as Will, grasping the attached cord, swung the whistle overhead round and round.

The sound they heard was not what he expected. Not a high-pitched whistle, but a low whisper emanated from the dragon whistle.

"Is it working?" Brian asked.

Alia smiled at the vaguely familiar sound.

"I think so," said Will. "It sounds like the sound I heard in the background as Ramador spoke. Almost like a whisper. He said that dragons do not communicate through voice like we do. In any case, it sounds like him to me."

"That's it!" agreed Alia.

All three scanned the dark skies for any sign of a response.

"Will he come?" said Brian.

"He promised that he would, no matter where he was," replied Will. "I have no idea how far away he is or how long it will take him to get here. In any case, it is too dark to see so we will have to wait. I hope he can get here in time to help us."

Brian, Will, and Alia returned to their task. They easily floated both barrels up the stairwell to the gate area. There, Sir Nigel was directing several men. They poured oil into a number of pots. Under the watchful eye of sentries, the gate was open and Alia, who was by far the most agile, was lowered below the drawbridge where she fastened a sort of netting across the underside. Then she attached the pots into the netting interspersed with bales of sticks and straw.

When they were done, Will and Alia accompanied Sir Nigel and Brian back to the Gulthorn quarters. All said good night, with Will and Brian going up to a rampart near the main gate. From there, Will could see a portion of the Mordlock camp where numerous fires blazed brightly. Chants could be heard even from this distance. Will gazed skyward at the two moons that shown down over Alderwood. He hoped that Ramador would get his message. Surely, with the help of a fire-breathing dragon, the kingdom of Alderwood could be saved?

Brian launched himself into the sky while Will returned to the castle gate. With Brian circling watchfully overhead, Will was allowed out through a partially opened gate and across the still lowered drawbridge. He crept out onto the field to reverse his trenching spell. Although it took some energy, he learned that spell was not near as difficult to reverse as it was to apply. Most of the trenches were connected and simply touching one filled in connecting trenches. He left the field after a few hours' work, satisfied that the work was complete and that there was no evidence that the trenches had been filled. The Mordlocks would be surprised by the ability of the knights to charge across the field.

Will slept fitfully that night. Periodically, he would rise and look out of the window of the room in which he and Alia slept. The two moons that hung in the sky over Alderwood were almost overshadowed by the many campfires of the Mordlocks. Will saw no sign that Ramador had returned.

The next morning, Alia too appeared not to have slept well. She rubbed sleep from her eyes as she moved with Will and Brian to join Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen at the table. There was not much conversation; however, both Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen appeared well rested.

Will, who was deep in his own thoughts, was suddenly distracted. He could very faintly hear something that sounded like singing. As he focused on the sound, he realized that, between bites, Sir Nigel was humming! The tune was upbeat, almost happy, with a strong cadence and a bright section that repeated, but Sir Nigel appeared to be calmly eating and passing food to the others.

Will looked at Alia. She too appeared to have noticed the humming and was casting quick glances from Sir Nigel then to Gwen and Brian, neither of whom seemed to notice, but both of whom seemed completely, peacefully calm.

"What's that?" asked Will, directing his words to Sir Nigel.

Sir Nigel looked up, startled, "What?"

"The music, what are you humming?"

"Oh, that," replied Sir Nigel, now focused and completely aware of the others. "That is some very old music that Gwen's family taught me. It has come down through generations of Accipitrians who were skilled fighters when most of my ancestors were just farmers. It reminds us of the importance of fighting. The chorus says in part:"

For glory not for me

But for home and family

Our bodies go to ground

For kingdom safe and sound

"I realize that it's a bit odd – to be humming before battle, but it keeps my spirits up." And with that, Sir Nigel rose from the table. "Time to go, I think. Daylight will be here soon and we must be ready."

It dawned on both Will and Alia that, as calm as Sir Nigel appeared on the outside, he too was concerned about the upcoming battle.

Will, and Alia made their way to join other soldiers at the ramparts over the castle gate. From here they could look down on the men and women knights assembling in the courtyard. The sun had not yet peeked over the distant mountains and the courtyard was lit by torches mounted on the surrounding walls. The torchlight cast huge shadows of knights and horses as they prepared for battle. On the other side of the wall, they could see the fires of the Mordlock camps and hear the chants of the Mordlocks. They could see lots of movement among the Mordlock troops as they prepared to attack.

The sun began to rise over the distant mountains behind the Mordlocks. Shadows faded from the meadow as the light began to fill the sky. Will noticed that the sky was a clear blue except for a very small gray cloud over the farthest of the mountain peaks. He thought it was a bit odd for such a small storm cloud. Maybe it was the tip of a larger oncoming storm. Maybe a storm would slow the Mordlock attack on the castle or give the charging knights some cover.

Just then his attention was diverted. A horn sounded from one of the castle towers. The tower watchers had spied the Mordlock leaders assembling on the distant platform. The platform stood at the edge of the camp almost on the field. Row after row of Mordlocks were lined up in the camps facing the platform as their leaders exhorted them to man the roads and attack the castle yet again. The rows of Mordlocks now turned to face the castle. There were thousands of them prepared to attack.

One of the rampart soldiers spoke to Will and Alia. "Mordlock scouts have been out overnight. It appears that the Mordlocks know that the trenches have been removed."

Knights mounted their chargers and prepared to ride through the gate. They would launch their attack to penetrate the center of Mordlock lines in their attempt to kill Monar Rothwild and Craghorn Speth, the Mordlock leaders.

Will's gaze was momentarily distracted from the assembling Mordlocks by the distant storm cloud. It was getting closer but still appeared to be just a small cluster.

King Benjamin Godfrey, riding with Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain at the head of the line of knights signaled for the drawbridge to be lowered. The knights rode slowly out through the gate and across the drawbridge. Their line assembled just on the other side of the moat with the king in the center flanked by Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain with an equal number of knights forming on either side.

The goal was to appear to have a line that would charge straight at the front Mordlock line, but at the last minute to form an arrow focused on the center of the Mordlock line, which would penetrate its center and get to the leaders on the platform behind. The signal was given and the drawbridge was set afire. There would be no retreat for the knights.

Will could see that the Mordlocks had begun to move toward the castle. Lines of troops spanned the width of the field. Two lines were now in front of the Mordlock leader's platform and heading toward the castle with many more lines behind the platform. If the knights could begin their charge soon, there would be only a few lines of Mordlocks for the knights to penetrate to reach the platform.

Will was distracted for a minute – noticing that the small cloud was nearer, now being high over the distant foothills at the edge of the forest that led to the battlefield meadow. It was no longer a dot, but appeared to have fanned out and grown slightly wider. Will could see blue sky behind the edges of the cloud.

Mordlock horns sounded and a roar went up from the Mordlock troops. The chanting began as, in unison, Mordlocks moved out across the field toward the castle.

Archers led by Lady Gwen, fired flaming arrows toward the troops. A few Mordlocks were struck; however most arrows were caught by raised Mordlock shields.

King Godfrey unleashed his sword and raised it high. All of the knights, in unison raised their swords. A cry went out as the line of knights urged their mounts to a steady canter toward the Mordlocks across the field ahead of them.

Will looked at Alia who stood with the archers. He nodded then turned to watch the advancing knights.

He was distracted again. The storm cloud appeared to be dissolving. What once appeared to be a concentrated cloud now appeared to be individual strands of off-gray? No gray-blue. No green. He felt a pang of disappointment at having no storm for cover. Suddenly the disappointment was replaced by the realization of what he was seeing. Dragons!

More than 50 dragons fanning out across the sky came into focus as they formed in a steep dive on the charging Mordlock troops. Only at the last minute did Mordlocks sense that anything was amiss. A wave went through the Mordlock lines as the troops turned and looked skyward and were met by swooping dragons booming fire down upon them.

The first pass of the dragons decimated the Mordlock ranks. Before the charging knights could reach the Mordlock front lines, the dragons returned for a second fiery pass as Mordlocks burst into flames, then fell into small piles of ashes as they died. A few Mordlocks attempted to throw spears as the dragons passed overhead, but the few spears that made it through dragon flames simply bounced off the scaly hides of the dragons.

The charging knights passed quickly through the few Mordlocks remaining in the front lines, but were still 100 yards from the leader's platform. Will could see Monar Rothwild and Aldor Capron along with several of their captains organized in a circle on the platform with weapons raised to meet the charging knights.

But it was not to be. Out of organized flight of dragons wheeling and diving on the now scattered lines of Mordlock troops, a dragon emerged heading straight for the platform. As the dragon streaked toward the platform, Will smiled in recognition. He glanced over at Alia. She too was focused on the dragon and was grinning. Ramador had returned. As Will and Alia watched (and, for that matter, everyone else on the ramparts), Ramador swooped down on the platform on which the Mordlock leaders stood. While still 50 feet away, his wings flared as he slowed his descent. Then a huge ball of fire came from his nose and mouth, completely engulfing the platform and the Mordlocks standing on it. The burst of flame cleared and the Mordlocks could still be seen standing in a group. Or at least the gray husks that had been Mordlocks could be seen. They had burned so quickly and completely that the Mordlock forms still remained. For a second. Then the forms dissolved, falling to the ground, leaving small piles of ashes lying amid the burnt timbers of the platform.

The charging knights slowed then halted as King Godfrey reined in his charger. All looked around surveying the battlefield. Three thousand Mordlocks had died and small piles of ashes were all that was left to see, scattered in ragged rows in the field. Tents flapped empty in the Mordlock camp as the dragon flight circled high overhead. Cheers went up from the men and women of the knights as they saluted the wheeling dragons. A cheer arose from the castle ramparts as everyone, soldiers and villagers alike, came to the full realization of what had happened. Alderwood was saved.

Will and Alia rushed from the ramparts to the castle gate below. The gate was already opened and carpenters were hauling wood from storage to construct a temporary drawbridge. But Will and Alia could not wait. With the help of several soldiers, they dropped one of the long timbers across the moat, then ran across and out into the field toward the returning knights.

One dragon dropped from the flight of dragons wheeling above. In a long glide, he flew over the knights and landed on the field in front of Will and Alia.

Will and Alia were grinning from ear to ear. If one looked carefully, Ramador himself looked pleased to see his new friends though it is well known that dragons do not smile.

"I found some old friends and made some new ones in a land far on the other side of this world. When I heard your whistle, I thought I should bring a few of them with me," he continued matter-of-factly.

King Godfrey, flanked by Sir Nigel and Sir Gawain, rode up leading the small army of knights.

"Ramador, may I present, King Godfrey, Sir Nigel Gulthorn, and Sir Gawain Halstead" said Will, waving his hand from the dragon to the king and his companions.

"I must say for myself, my knights, and all who reside in the kingdom, that we are very grateful for what you and your fellow dragons have done here today," said the king.

"I am simply repaying a favor," replied Ramador. "Mr. Will and Miss Alia freed me from Mordlock capture, an act without which I would not be here."

"Nevertheless, we are forever in your debt," replied King Godfrey. "And you will always be welcome here."

"I do appreciate the sentiment," said Ramador. "However, dragon and human interaction has not worked out well in the past. My fellow dragons have found a land far away where we can pursue our natural tendencies without interfering with human day-to-day activities, so after I speak a bit with my friends, I will rejoin the dragon flight and return there."

Nodding politely to the mounted knights, he turned and moved away toward the edge of the field, indicating to Will and Alia that they should follow.

After they were some distance from the knights, Alia spoke. "Ramador, the people of Alderwood will always be in your debt. Why can't you just stay home in Alderwood?"

"Dragons live to hunt and fly, and for that matter, to have small battles where they singe each other with dragon fire. Humans keep cattle and sheep, which are far too tempting a meal for dragons to pass up. They are also somewhat disconcerted to see fire-breathing dragons wheeling around in the sky even if they are only scorching each other," commented Ramador. "I am afraid that humans and dragons were not meant to live together. The land that dragons have found has plenty of wild game, sunny skies, and no humans. It is ideal for us."

"We will miss you," replied Will. "And now that this mission is over, we are not sure what we will do."

"You are Watchers," replied Ramador. "You must return to your world. I am sure that Amadeus Weldon has other issues for which he needs your assistance."

"But the way back is lost," replied Alia. "When we were in the cave, the elevator door disappeared."

"Portals do not disappear," replied Ramador. "Some, like the portal to Mordomum may be locked and charmed to disguise the opening, but most are open but invisible to most people. If you know how to look, you can see them. Simply tip your head up and tilt it to the right a few degrees like this and look directly at where the portal should be."

Will and Alia noted the effect of tipping and tilting that Ramador demonstrated. He had them practice a bit and after a few corrective suggestions, he continued, "I think you both have the idea. If you approach the location of the portal and tilt your head as you have learned, simply scanning back and forth slightly will allow you to bring the portal into view. Then you can pass through it and return to your world."

"Thank you," replied Alia. "We look forward to going home."

"And here," said Will, reaching under his tunic and pulling out the dragon whistle, "we won't be needing this anymore, I am sad to say."

"Keep it," replied Ramador. "It works for dragons in whatever world you may find yourselves. And someday, you may return. I look forward to seeing you again and hearing of your adventures."

Ramador looked around at the castle, the forest, the distant mountains, and the small ash piles that were all that was left of the Mordlock army. Then his gaze rose to the flight of dragons circling the mountains far in the distance.

"Good-bye my new-found friends," he said reluctantly. Then he launched himself skyward. In a few minutes, he was a tiny green speck joining the flight of dragons. As he joined them, Will and Alia could see the whole flight change direction as they stopped circling and headed directly over the mountains. Soon they had disappeared.

Will and Alia did not speak. Quietly they turned and rejoined the king and his troops as they headed toward the castle.

By now everyone was in the mood to celebrate. The carpenters had managed to throw some stout timbers together and a temporary drawbridge had been created over the moat. Villagers streamed from the castle to welcome the knights. The knights had ridden out in an atmosphere of solemn determination with everyone almost certain that they would not return. Now they were laughing and shouting, hugging their families in relief.

As they entered the courtyard, Will and Alia were met by a smiling Brian who hugged them both. Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen approached.

"Well done, I'd say," said Sir Nigel, with Lady Gwen nodding in agreement. "Having a dragon for a friend does come in handy. Especially when he brings friends. The queen is organizing a celebration and you two are to be guests of honor."

"It is time for all to celebrate," said Will. However, we have just found out that there is a way home through the portal."

"Yes," said Alia, "we are ready to go home."

"Please let the king and the knights of Alderwood, give you a proper thanks," responded Gwen. "If you stay for the beginning of the celebration, then you can slip out. Brian will make sure that you get back to the cave entrance."

"But how do you know where the cave entrance is?" Alia asked Brian.

Brian smiled. "I was there when you came out."

"The hawk in the tree!" replied Will and Alia in unison. "That was you!"

"It was me," agreed Brian. "We were expecting some help from the Watchers. I checked a few times each day to see if anyone had come."

The next few hours flew by. Knights returned and disarmed, leaving horses to be stabled and cared for. Villagers began to gather their possessions and pack up their carts. A slow steady stream of people returning to their villages began to move out through the castle gate. The main banquet room was a flurry of activity as banners were hung and tables were set for the celebration. Cooks built fires and began their preparations. Soon delicious smells wafted throughout the castle.

# Chapter 15. Home Again

Will and Alia put on their best clothes. Before they left for the celebration, they said good-bye to Sir Nigel and Lady Gwen in the privacy of the Gulthorn quarters. Although happy at the chance for Will and Alia to go home, both were saddened that their new-found friends were leaving.

The celebration feast was quite the affair. Banners hung throughout the main hall and tables were heaped with food and drink. Knights and nobles sat amidst leaders from the local villages and the conversations were happy and lively. At the head table King Benjamin and Queen Elora sat resplendent in their royal robes. The king and queen hardly had time with each other since the king's return and were obviously happy to be together again. King Benjamin rose, goblet in hand, and the room fell silent.

"All of you here worked hard to save this kingdom and to each of you we give thanks," he said. "But there are two visitors without whom this kingdom would not have survived. Without their diligence and bravery in closing the portal and the freeing of Ramador, clearly none of what followed would have been possible. So a special thanks and a toast to Will and Alia!"

As one, the knights and guests rose and lifted their goblets. "To Will and Alia!"

Seated, Will and Alia raised their goblets and returned the salute.

Everyone seated themselves and soon a round of toasts to the knights, the villagers, and the dragons was proclaimed, each followed by hearty salutes. Will and Alia, seated with Brian, enjoyed themselves. Alia concentrated on one last taste of the delicious pie available in Alderwood, which she had discovered was as good as any she had ever tasted. While Will and Alia ate, they were continually approached by guests who thanked them and wished them well. After a while, the celebration got down to serious eating and drinking. There were many conversations going on among different groups of people and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Will signaled to Alia and they quietly slipped from the room, followed by Brian.

"Horses are being saddled," said Brian, as he escorted them back to the Gulthorn quarters to get their things. From there, they proceeded to the stables where stable boys waited with their horses. Brian led the way and soon all three had passed through the meadow where the Mordlocks had been crushed and were on the main road entering the forest. As they passed through the Mordlock camp, which had not yet been dismantled, a shudder ran through Will as he thought how close they had come to not succeeding. What made Amadeus Weldon have so much faith in him and his sister? Under the two moons of Alderwood, they rode for most of the night as Brian led them past the village of Farrodowne and through the forest toward the distant mountains. Finally, as the sun was coming up, they arrived at a clearing that was faintly familiar. A path led from the clearing up the mountain. At the end of the path was the opening to the cave. Will and Alia dismounted and gave the reins of their horses to Brian. Will and Alia were truly saddened as they said goodbye to Brian. After exchanging hugs and a few whispered words of farewell, Brian remounted, and with the extra horses in tow, disappeared back down the trail, leaving Will and Alia standing alone just outside of the entrance to the cave.

Will and Alia entered the cave. They dug into their backpacks and retrieved their flashlights. Flashlights still working after all this time, thought Will. Then he realized that it had only been a few weeks since they had last been in the cave. They passed the part of the cave where Ramador had been held. The huge manacle that had bound him to the spot still sat there un-rusted. A trace of dragon scent still lingered in the air. Having shed its mystery, the cave itself seemed smaller. They found the place where the rocks were scorched from their first encounter with Ramador. And they could actually retrace their steps as the slightly sandy floor of the cave still bore traces of their passage. They moved deeper and deeper into the cave following the footprints around stalagmites. Soon the light from the cave entrance was only a pinpoint of brightness far behind them. The cave was larger now. The walls and ceiling were outside of the range of their flashlights and the stony coolness surrounded them. In a short time, the cave walls again appeared as they entered the tunnel leading to the elevator. Abruptly they arrived at the end of the tunnel. They shined their lights up and down the stone wall of the cave but could see no opening.

"This must be the place," said Alia. "Our footprints lead right to here."

"I think we need to look like Ramador showed us," replied Will. He took a few steps back. Still shining his light on the wall, he cocked his head to imitate what they had practiced with Ramador. He moved his head ever-so-slowly scanning right to left. There! He smiled. As clear as day, he could see the door to the elevator.

Alia stood at Will's side. She too positioned herself as she had practiced with Ramador's instruction. She smiled, then took a few steps forward and pushed the elevator call button. The elevator's doors opened in front of them.

This time, they did not have to remove the control panel cover to find the button they needed. Will pushed the button for the first floor. The ride upward seemed shorter than their previous descent. Their ears popped as they glided up. Then the elevator slowed and the doors opened. They were back.

Cautiously, they poked their heads out of the service elevator and looked around the area just outside of the elevator. No one was there. They walked down the empty hallways of the Caverna building. They could see a few clocks indicating it was 6 o'clock. Early morning – just before sunrise. They made their way to the loading dock at the back of the building. Being on the inside of the building, it was easier to disarm the door alarm and slip out the door into the alley behind the building. Soon they were back on the street, happy and breathing a big sigh of relief at not having encountered any more trouble.

As the sun came up, they made their way across town toward The Gallery. Traffic began to build and pedestrians filled the sidewalks on their way to work. They turned off of the main street onto the street on which The Gallery was located. As they walked several blocks, traffic diminished and the stream of pedestrians thinned. Finally, they stood in front of The Gallery. Alia reached forward and pressed the doorbell.

They waited less than a minute. The door opened. They recognized the face accompanying the huge bulk that stood before them. Saydon Nemscally stood before them. He did not look surprised.

"Mr. Will, Miss Alia, welcome back," he said. Then he turned and began walking toward the back of The Gallery. "Mr. Weldon is expecting you. Please close the door behind you."

He led the way to the office at the back of The Gallery. Once again, Will was impressed at the bulk of the gentle man who led them past display cases full of beautiful and ancient objects. Alia was even more enamored by the number of different weapons on display.

The door to the office was open. Saydon Nemscally accompanied Will and Alia into the room. He closed the door and stood off to one side.

Mr. Weldon was seated at his desk reading what appeared to be a hand-written document on old parchment. As Will and Alia entered the room, he finished reading, then placed the document down on his desk and smiled warmly.

Will and Alia moved to stand in front of Mr. Weldon. Each of them reached into their backpacks and brought out the objects that they had been sent to retrieve. They placed the crystal and the rolled-up map on the desk in front of Mr. Weldon, then seated themselves in the two deep chairs that faced his desk.

Amadeus Weldon opened a drawer of his desk. He retrieved the check made out to Recovery Inc. and placed it on the desk in front of Will and Alia.

"First of all, let me apologize for what happened," said Amadeus Weldon. "Your mission was meant to be a relatively simple retrieval in this world, not what it turned out to be."

"We just got back. How would you know what it turned out to be?" asked Will.

"Suffice it to say that a report of your accomplishments has already made its way back to me," replied Mr. Weldon, indicating the document on his desk. "How that happens can be left for another time. You were chosen for this task both to test your skills and to initiate you into the work that we do. The cover story that you were recovering art objects was for the simple reason that you would not have believed it if I had told you that Alderwood actually existed. Also, I did not expect that you would travel there. When it first became apparent that you had had some difficulties retrieving the map and the crystal, we thought that you may have been taken somewhere on this world and a search was begun. By the time we realized that you must have travelled through the portal, a different crisis had arisen and we had to devote members to dealing with that. Unfortunately, I had to leave you to your own devices. Fortunately, and as Saydon predicted, you were up to the challenge."

"What members, what crisis?" asked Alia, looking a bit confused.

"The crisis is over and that too is information for another time," answered Amadeus Weldon. "But I do owe you an explanation. What you accomplished was so much more than retrieval of the objects. If you had not gone to Alderwood, you would not have rescued our dear friend Ramador, and he would surely have perished in the captivity of the Mordlocks trapped in that world. The rift between dragons and men has been healed. Though dragons and men will live separately, men will always respect dragons for saving the kingdom of Alderwood and the two can live together on the same world. Most importantly, your actions fulfilled the purpose of the Watchers."

"Who are the Watchers?" asked Will.

"There is a group of men and women known collectively as The Watchers. They are responsible for maintaining the balance between worlds connected by a system of portals. Balance is shifted sometimes by living beings that move between worlds, as in the case of the Mordlocks that you just encountered. Balance may also be shifted simply by the transport of different objects between worlds. Many Watchers simply serve to monitor the traffic through portals and to make assessments as to how the interworld balance is or might be affected. There is a smaller group known as Retrievers, who are responsible for actually finding or recovering things that are important to the stability of worlds. Your parents belonged to this group. Their names were Alvar and Rhian. We lost two highly skilled people and dear friends when they were both killed by an enemy of the Watchers as they returned home. That is a story for another time. When they were killed, I took you from your home and made arrangements for you to be taken in to the Farm."

"Where is home?" asked Will and Alia in unison.

"Here," replied Mr. Weldon, placing a picture on his desk in front of them and turning it to face them.

Alia gasped and looked at Will. On the desk before them was a picture of the house that they had passed on their first day on the way to The Gallery.

Will and Alia were speechless.

Will, recovering first, asked, "Who owns the house?"

"We have kept it in trust," replied Amadeus Weldon. "Now I am returning it to you. We have much to discuss. There are many items in the house that will give you some background on your parents and your brief lives together. After that, we can talk about what they meant to me personally. They were fellow Watchers, but also good friends and are sorely missed. For now, please take some time to recover from your adventure. When you are sufficiently rested, we can talk about your parents and your future." He stood up. He held out two sets of keys, giving one to Alia and the other to Will. "I believe that you both know where to find the house."

They were dismissed.

Will and Alia left The Gallery in a daze. Their recent adventure plus the information they had just been given was nothing short of mind blowing. They walked across town to the location of the house and stood before it, keys in hand.

They walked down the short walkway to the house and onto the front porch. Alia unlocked the door and they entered the house. They stood in the large foyer. From there they could see the entrances to several other rooms. They moved through the downstairs rooms slowly, experiencing a vague familiarity in the furnishings and decorative objects scattered throughout. The house was clean and dust free. The kitchen had been stocked with groceries.

They moved into what appeared to be the living room. On the mantle over the fireplace was a picture of a happy looking couple. A slim, handsome man beamed at a dark-haired woman who held two tiny babies in her arms. Tiny sparks of recognition glimmered in both Will and Alia. It was clear what they were seeing. The resemblance of the man and woman to Alia and Will was notable. The babies were themselves! They were seeing a picture of their parents for the first time.

Alia was the first to recover. "I know what I need," she said looking at Will.

Will, grinning slightly asked "What's that?"

Alia turned back toward the kitchen. "A glass of milk and some pie."

They were home.

###

Will and Alia have been sent on another adventure.

I will tell you their story as soon as they return.

Kram Scavok

About the Author

Kram Scavok is a pseudonym for the author. The author was born in the USA and has lived in several cities all across the US including the East Coast, Midwest, Mountain States, and West Coast. Interested in animals from an early age, he studied biological sciences as an undergraduate, earned a master's degree in physiology, then went on to receive a degree in veterinary medicine and became a practicing veterinarian. On the way to becoming a veterinarian, the author held a variety of jobs including: work on a dairy farm, a cattle ranch, an animal shelter, as a short order cook and service in the hospital corps of the US Army. Reading favorites include Science Fiction and Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Mysteries and, of course, Harry Potter.

Other Books by Kram Scavok

### The Return of the Phoenix

### A Backdoor in Time
