The Maelstrom

chips.

“Wealth,” suggested another.

“Impossible,” put in a third. “He’s never had either.” As the table erupted in laughter, the smee slid farther down his pillow.

“Done to death by slanderous tongue was the Hero that here lies,” he murmured.

“I thought that must be a hero,” remarked Max, pulling up a chair.

The smee nearly rolled off the chaise with shock. “Max!” he cried, catching himself and straightening. “David! What are you two doing here?”

“Looking for you,” replied David. “We’ve got a secret mission and could use your help. What do you say, Toby? ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends’?”

The smee flipped about to address the nonplussed faun. “Did you hear that, succubus?” he cried. “Rowan’s greatest champions have come requesting my aid. They need me! Find someone else to endure your frivolous poppycock and threadbare ‘epiphanies.’ I have important work to do.…”

As Max carried him out of the speakeasy, Toby preened like a sultan, swooning with pride and an excess of rum. By the time they’d reached the observatory, however, the smee’s mood had sobered.

“Are we setting out right away?” he wondered, watching as Max and David stuffed clothes, bedrolls, and cooking gear into their packs. “Perhaps we should discuss strategy. I mean … I don’t even know what the mission is about!”

“We’ll tell you when we get there,” Max muttered, buckling the longsword opposite the gae bolga.

“And where is ‘there’ precisely?” inquired the smee delicately.

“Blys,” answered David, deftly fastening his pack with his only hand.

“But … but there are rumors of war in Blys,” exclaimed Toby. “Isn’t that … dangerous?”

“It’s not a vacation,” Max quipped, throwing another pair of woolly socks into his pack; in the wilderness, one could never have enough woolly socks. He slipped a warm black cloak over his shoulders, fastening it with the ivory brooch Scathach had given him in the Sidh.

“Do you have Ormenheid?” asked David, plucking a small glass vial from a shelf and slipping it into his belt pouch. Max nodded and patted his pocket where the dvergars’ marvelous vessel had shrunk down to the size of a matchbox. When set upon the water and given the proper command, the miniature would expand into a Viking longship that could navigate and sail itself against wind, wave, and tide.

“On second thought,” reflected Toby, “perhaps I overindulged this evening. My head isn’t quite right. I’m feeling downright tipsy. Call me a scalawag, gentlemen, but I think I’d best sleep it off.…”

“Sorry, Toby,” said Max, plucking up the smee by one end. “This will have to do.” He unceremoniously dunked the creature into a nearby pitcher of water. “Better?”

“Invigorated,” groused the smee. “And now I will ask you to kindly put me down and never to grab me by that particular part of my anatomy again.”

Horrified, Max promptly dropped the smee onto its pillow.

David cleared his throat. “If you’re ready, we’ll be off.”

“So where is the tunnel?” asked Max.

“The same place you tried two years ago,” said David, smiling. “But this time, my nosy friend, you’ll have the password.…”

Max reddened, remembering back to the time when he’d suspected David was going mad. He’d known David was leaving Rowan through some secret passage in their room and had been determined to follow. He’d discovered that David’s bed served as some sort of gateway, but the password had foiled him and he never made his way through.

Carrying the indignant smee, Max followed his roommate along the ledge on the observatory’s upper level toward David’s bed. Drawing aside its moon-stitched curtains, David unveiled a sleigh bed, half buried beneath unwashed coffee mugs, innumerable manuscripts, half a moldy sandwich, and some sort of grimacing iguana preserved in spirits of wine.

“Here we are,” he said, oblivious to the mess as he sat near the headboard and swept some papers aside to clear a place for Max. As they had before, the grains in the wood began to swirl about, dancing in and out of focus as they rearranged themselves.

“Take my hand, Max,” David commanded. “Hold it tightly and keep a firm grip on Toby.”

Max did so, staring at the headboard with breathless anticipation as the grains formed a familiar pattern.

Password?

Max’s roommate said nothing. He merely gazed up at the glass-domed ceiling and the stars beyond while the seconds ticked by.

“David,” Max hissed. “It’s asking you for the password.”

“Shhh,” replied the little sorcerer, still staring up at the stars.

Confused, Max followed his friend’s eyes up to the heavens. A new constellation was forming in the dome, its contours illuminated by slender threads of golden light that connected its stars. A moment later, Max was gazing at an enormous sea creature, its form outlined against the infinite space beyond. At last David spoke.

“Cetus.”

A painful jolt accompanied a flash, followed by a spinning blur of lights that brought bile to Max’s throat. Instinctively, he shut his eyes.

When he opened them, he was in Blys.

~ 6 ~ To the Ravenswood Spur

When he opened his eyes, Max found that he was still clutching Toby and sitting next to David as he had at Rowan. But they were no longer in their room; they were sitting on a moldy cot in a run-down villa. A dreary dawn peeked through holes in the sagging roof. Birds were roosting in the rafters, cooing softly and rustling their feathers whenever any icy draft came sweeping through. David released Max’s hand.

“How do you feel?”

Max did not reply. He was on the verge of vomiting. Every organ seemed out of place and confused, as though they were still traveling thousands of miles in an instant. Even the room’s dim light caused stabs of pain in Max’s head. Shutting his eyes, he lay back on the bed and waited for the nausea to pass. The smee stirred in his hand.

“Wh-where are we?” Toby stammered.

“Blys,” replied David. “In Prusias’s own province. The capital city is a hundred miles or so south. We’re not so far from Max’s old house. We’ll pass it on our way to Broadbrim Mountain.”

“Why are we going there?” asked Max, releasing Toby and sitting up.

“Let’s have a seat,” said David, gesturing toward a splintered table in the room’s center. “We’ll examine Sir Alistair’s dossier and discuss the plan. I already have some things in mind.”

“May I finally slip into something more comfortable?” asked Toby. “It’s emasculating to be plucked up like a stray sock and carried about all the time.”

“Of course,” said David. “We’re not at Rowan—you’re free to take whatever shape you like.”

Smees were doppelgangers extraordinaire, creatures capable of mimicking not only another being’s shape, but also its mannerisms, speech, and aura. When Max had first met Toby, the smee was masquerading as a ten-ton selkie to win the affections (and servitude) of the Sanctuary’s selkie sisters, Helga and Frigga. When his fraud was discovered, Toby had been forced to reveal his true shape before all assembled and was thereafter banned from changing shape while at Rowan. When put to a more noble purpose, however, the smee’s talents were exceedingly useful. Not even the terrible demon Mad’raast had been able to penetrate Toby’s disguise when they’d sailed