Do you know, Sindari?
With the battle over, the great tiger walked at my side. Rocket kept shooting him suspicious looks, and his hackles remained up. Poor dog. He should have been left home to entertain Maggie.
Do I know what’s happening to cause the magical to flee other realms? No. Del’noth is not like the seventeen worlds in the Cosmic Realms. It is not a place that you can travel to. Long ago, my ancestors were fleeing hunters who felt it a great triumph to slay a magical tiger—the Zhinevarii, as we call ourselves. We did not wish to start a war, only to be left alone to hunt our prey and enjoy the company of our kind. The most powerful of my kind attempted to create their own special realm, but they lacked the magic necessary. They made a deal with a pair of dragons, who assisted them in the gargantuan task in exchange for the promise that some of our warriors would allow themselves to be magically linked to figurines and called upon to help the owners in battle when the time came.
I touched the figurine on my necklace. I’d had to kill a powerful ogre wizard to claim it, but not a dragon. Sindari had told me the ogre had stolen it, but I hadn’t realized from whom—or what.
The realm they created is not like the others, Sindari added, not a planet that orbits a sun in a star system in this galaxy. It exists in between in another plane, another dimension. It is pure magic. Only those bound by one of the magical figurines can travel between it and other worlds.
Bound? Are you a prisoner, then? A surge of guilt filled me. When I’d gotten the figurine, I’d considered it a prize, fairly won in battle. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask if Sindari was an unwilling prize. Of course, it had taken a month before he’d deigned to talk to me, so learning anything about him had been difficult. Should I try to find a way to free you so you can go home and stay there?
The thought stirred anxiety, as I imagined losing the first new friend I’d made in a long time. The first I’d felt safe enough befriending, since he could take care of himself.
That is not possible—and it would not be permitted. Even though you are not supposed to be my handler—nor was the thief that had me before—because of the deal my ancestors made, I must wait until we are called to serve the dragons. Then, perhaps when that battle has been fought and the deal has been satisfied, I will be released to live always among my own kind.
Would it help if I never called you away from your world? I hated the thought and wasn’t sure I could give up such a powerful ally now that I’d gotten used to having him at my side in battles.
Do you not need me?
Of course I do.
Then you should call me. I would not wish you to be slain by some furry wolf pup because you lacked a proper nanny.
I smiled, wondering if that meant he’d come to care about me. What would I do if a dragon—maybe this Zav himself—showed up and tried to take the figurine from me, to use Sindari in some war that might be fought one day?
How long ago was your realm formed and that deal made?
Before your people existed.
Ah, and in all that time, the dragons hadn’t yet fought their war? Maybe there was hope that nobody would come for Sindari in my lifetime then.
Rocket wanted to sniff one of the dead wolves, but Mom hurried him past the area of the fight. She still had him on his leash. She was almost jogging as she led the way up the path, a path that grew wider and more tamped down, more covered with all manner of prints.
She slowed to a halt in front of a jagged cliff formed of jumbled lava-rock boulders. They had been there a long time, and massive pines grew up from dirt-packed crevices between them, their roots dangling over the sides. The path ended right in front of a huge slab of rock.
“Has that always been there?” I pointed at it.
“No. It’s usually a tunnel entrance. This looks very permanent.” She looked down at the tracks for confirmation that we were in the right spot, then touched the boulder. Suspecting an illusion?
Her hand landed on solid rock. Dead end.
11
I sensed a hint of magic in the rock wall we faced. What do you think, Sindari?
It is an enchanted doorway. The tiger sat on his haunches and watched me. You should have brought your new dwarf friend.
Dimitri? We just met him yesterday. I wouldn’t consider him a friend yet.
He’s watching the small demon feline. Is this not an act of friendship?
Good point.
“Sindari says it’s an enchanted doorway,” I told Mom.
She was patting all along the rock face, looking for a gap or some magical switch to throw.
“They probably sensed the werewolves—and the dragon—and locked up tight.” I fingered my key-shaped charm, wondering if it would be up to the task.
“He… says?” For the first time, Mom paused and studied Sindari. “Your, uh, tiger speaks?”
Sindari lifted his head and puffed out his chest under this perusal.
“Telepathically to me, yes. I think he can only communicate with people who are capable of telepathy themselves and the person who has his charm.” I touched the figurine. “You’ll have to trust me that he’s wise and witty.”
I’m positive she can tell that from the regal way I carry myself.
You’ve got werewolf blood spattered on your tail.
Regally.
“Let me try, Mom.” I waved her back from the rock, rested my hand on the rock face, and grasped my charm.
This one didn’t have an activation word that needed to be voiced. Closing my eyes, I willed it to thwart whatever locking mechanism or enchantment lay before us.
It warmed in my grip, and the rock under my hand grew less solid. As it wavered, becoming opaque and then translucent, something came into view. A blue-green troll with spiky white hair—and a club.
It roared, staring straight at me. I jumped back, yanking out Chopper instead of my gun. Trolls were next to impossible to kill even with magical ammunition.
“Wait.” Mom stepped up beside me, lifting her empty hands. “I’m friends with Greemaw. I’ve been here before.”
Would the troll understand her? It wore a necklace of teeth, but nothing appeared magical and able to translate.
“You bring the Deathstalker here?” The troll pointed its club at me. Her club, I decided, noticing something akin to breasts pressed against her leather tunic. “This is not the act of a friend.”
“I can’t understand her,” Mom whispered. “Can you?”
“Yes, she doesn’t like me.”
“I gathered that from the club.”
“This is my mother.” I tilted my head toward her without lowering my sword. “She said someone here—ah, Greemaw—might be able to answer a few questions. I don’t want a fight, just information.”
I wondered if the troll knew about the werewolves and would call me a liar, since I’d been fighting them.
She looked over our heads, an easy feat since she was almost ten feet tall, and out toward the forest. The nostrils in her wide squat nose flared. I don’t know what the winds told her, but she gave me a flat, unfriendly look.
“The price of information will be high for the Deathstalker.”
“If I introduce myself as Val, will that help?”
“No. Come.” The troll lowered her club, turned, and strode into the tunnel.
“Are we invited in?” Mom asked.
“Something like that.”
I started to go first, but she lifted a hand and caught my arm. “Rocket and I have been here before. I stumbled across this place when I was searching for a kid who’d gone missing from a campground.”
“The troll didn’t eat him, did she?” Reluctantly, I let her lead, but Sindari and I followed right after her. Which made Rocket nervous—he kept glancing back, not ready to accept a tiger as a hiking buddy yet.
“No. An orc who’d lost her own child found him and wanted to adopt him into the clan.”
“There’s a whole clan in here?”
The passage we’d entered looked like the other lava tube caves I’d seen in the area, wide with a high curving ceiling and veering slightly downhill. The ground was covered with flat sandy dust, packed down from the tread of countless feet.
“Among other things,” Mom said.
The temperature dropped as we walked farther from the entrance. A shadow fell behind us, the solid rock reappearing and blocking out daylight. Magical torches sputtering in holders on the rock walls provided light, but the uneasy feeling of being trapped crept into me. I reminded myself that I had the key to the door.
A small, round shape on the ground against a wall came into view as the passage curved around a bend. My first thought was that it was a skull and that we would soon pass all manner of discarded bones from some predator’s meal—some troll’s meal—but it was a ball. Rocket trotted forward and sniffed it, but it was too large for a dog’s mouth. Sindari could have picked it up in his teeth if he were so inclined, but he was probably too regal to play with a ball. Or play at all. Once, I’d shown him a video of panthers, lions, and tigers in a big-cat rescue having fun with boxes. He’d been unimpressed. Someday, I was going to find a box big enough for him and see if it tempted him.
Another bend took us past a natural pool against one wall, droplets of water dribbling down from a crack in the ceiling to fill it. On one side, a pair of swimming pool noodles bobbed, along with an inner tube that might have escaped from someone doing the river float through town.
I sheathed Chopper. Whatever this place was, I didn’t think I was walking into a war zone.
What I didn’t expect was for the tunnel to end and open back up into the outdoors. We walked into a valley filled with a surprising variety of wood, stone, and hide dwellings, everything from one-room huts to sprawling complexes surrounded by fences. The path turned into a road that meandered down the middle of the valley, past the residences and also a number of service tents and market stalls.
There were magical beings everywhere, the most orcs, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, kobolds, and goblins I’d seen in one place. There were a few more exotic beings as well, ones I’d heard about but never run into, such as firbolgs, a satyr, and a minotaur. Mom looked toward a handsome elf who looked like he’d walked off the set of Lord of the Rings. A wistful expression crossed her face.