Josh and the Magic Vial (34 page)

“But that's ridiculous, Quigs! I don't even know if I can send myself; I'm certainly not capable of projecting the two of us.”

Quiggle gave this objection a moment's thought, then said, “Send me first and you follow.”

“Oh, brilliant!” Josh guffawed. “That way I'll have company if I do happen to materialize us on the bottom of the Underground Sea or in a jar of pickles. What's the point of risking both our lives, Quigs? It doesn't make any sense.”

“Nevertheless, I am going with you. Come to think of it, I'll go with you even if you decide to walk to the Gallian Forest instead of taking the insane risk of voyaging there. Where you go, so do I, and that's the end of it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I shall caterwaul like a love-sick cat while you try to concentrate on your incantation. I shall make faces and poke you in the ribs. In short, I will make it impossible for you to even think of voyaging to the Gallian Forest, much less actually projecting yourself there.” Quiggle glared at his would-be master defiantly.

Josh shrugged and shook his head. “All right,” he said. “Have it your way. But don't blame me if you end up trapped someplace you'd rather not be.”

“That wouldn't be a new experience for me, to be sure,” Quiggle said dryly, and they both laughed until their sides hurt.

“Work with me,” Josh instructed. Only a powerful magician like Vortigen could actually project a spirit into another dimension without that spirit's consent. Unless Quiggle saw the destination and willed himself toward it, their attempt would fail.

“I'm trying,” Quiggle whined, frustrated with the effort. “But I can't really see the Gallian Forest, sir — not so as to say it's real.”

“You must,” Josh insisted.

“The art of astral voyaging begins with a clear vision of the place you want to go,” Athelrod had taught him. “You must actually see it, hear it, and smell it. Suddenly that vision becomes real. You simply know your mind has reached an actual place. We call that the ‘transition, ' and you'll know when it's occurred. A bridge has been established between you and the dimension you want to be in.”

Transitioning to a place you had already been was supposed to be easier than entering an unfamiliar dimension. “In such instances it's a mere act of remembering, then willing your spirit along the known path,” Athelrod had explained. Josh recalled his entry into Syde. He saw the Gallian Forest down below and the Serpentine River winding from Tilth across the wooded frontier. So far, however, his vision was just a memory. He had not transitioned yet either. “It's a matter of confidence,” Athelrod had said. “You must simply believe the vision is real, and voila! You're there.”

“Perhaps if I got closer in,” Josh muttered, imagining himself gliding down like a bird until he was skimming the treetops of the Gallian Forest. For a moment, he lost himself in the thrill of actually flying. He dipped to the right, spiralling round the tip of a gigantic pine, then flicked his wings and bobbed back up into the treetops again. A squirrel chattered angrily, mistaking him for a hawk. Josh laughed. “I wouldn't hurt you,” he called over his shoulder. “I'm a vegetarian falcon!” The forest thinned as he glided toward Tilth. Josh swooped down closer to the ground, delighted to hear the wind rustling in the grass and the burble of the water flowing over the rocky shore. Freshly mown hay. He looked across the river to the fields opposite. The land was more settled there. He could make out the road that led to The Habitations then on to Ormor, and a little track slanting from the high road down to the water.

“This is the spot!” he realized. “This is where we have to be!” Suddenly the scene was simply too real for a mere memory. Besides, he couldn't remember being this close to the river, because he never had been. Nor could he have remembered the chatter of an angry Gallian squirrel, or the burble of the Serpentine, or the smell of mown hay from Tilth because he'd never experienced any of those things.

“Quiggle! Come join me,” he shouted.

“What sir?'

“If you want to voyage to the Gallian Forest, join me now. I'm there already.”

So real had Josh's transition become, he could no longer see his room in the Emerald Palace. He was shouting to Quiggle from the edge of the Serpentine many miles away. He was in both dimensions, Josh knew, but the Emerald Palace had become less real than the place he had transitioned to. “Hurry, Quiggle, or you'll be left behind!”

“Hurry and do what?” Quiggle cried in a panic.

“Join me! Follow my voice and any recollections you have of the place where the Serpentine runs from Tilth into the Gallian Forest.”

“I'm trying, sir.”

Josh sent a vision of the place back to Quiggle, concentrating with all his might on connecting with the valet.

“Oh, sir, I think something's happening,” Quiggle gasped. “I think I see what you're seeing and I must say, I feel very peculiar at the moment — as if I might fall through the floor.”

“Latch onto the vision,” Josh yelled. “Come on!”

“Oh! Ow! Stop it!” Quiggle yelped, and in that instant his lips appeared in the air in front of Josh . . . but nothing else. “It feels like I'm being drawn through a straw, sir,” they said.

“Damn it Quiggle, you've got to work with me,” Josh grunted.

“I'm doing my best, Your Astral Highness. I'm trying . . .

Yaaa!”

“What is it?”

“I can see right through you, Sire. I can see the wall behind you. You've become a ghost.”

“That's because I'm half-here, half-there Quiggle and I can't hang on like this much longer. Either join me now, or be left behind.”

The lips pursed with effort and Quiggle went silent. Josh could feel his friend straining to get across. “That's it,” he coached. A hand materialized, then Quiggle's face around the lips. It was as if he were emerging through an elastic sheet in the air. “Just a little more, Quigs and you're here.” Quiggle pushed even harder until, suddenly, he burst through the barrier and came toppling out, bowling Josh over so the two of them landed in a heap on the grass.

“Welcome!” Josh laughed triumphantly.

Quiggle sprang to his feet and helped Josh up. “Excuse me your Laughing Lordship,” he said, brushing bits of straw and dirt from Josh's robes.

Ignoring the valet's protestations, Josh gave Quiggle a bear hug. “We did it,” he whooped. “We're here, Quiggle.”

Quiggle looked round, amazed. “It would appear so, sir,” he said. He bent down and tugged at the grass. “It feels real enough,” he reported.

“And can you see anything in my room at the palace?”

“No sir.”

“The portal's shut,” Josh said. “This is where we are now, and if we want to get back to Ormor, we'll have to voyage there.”

“I think I'd rather walk,” Quiggle suggested ruefully.

The echoes of their laughter had barely subsided, when the distant drum of horse's hooves reached them from the far shore. Someone — or rather, a horde — was galloping along at breakneck speed. Soon enough two riders crested a hill, thundering down the high road. A second later a troop of minions followed in hot pursuit. Wide eyed, Josh watched as Ian and Millie veered off the highroad onto the little track then charged down to the river, plunging in with a tumultuous splash.

“Quick!” Josh ordered. “Downstream. And keep out of sight.”

“Where are we going?”

“They'll be carried along by the current. We have to keep up and help get them safely across.” Josh said.

62

M
illie slipped off Mercury, into the icy water. She'd seen Ian thrown then swept away. By the way he'd thrashed around she realized he could not swim. Then he'd gone limp, and simply drifted with the current. “Ian!” The scream emerged from somewhere deep in her stomach, not so much a shout as a convulsion. It resonated through every nerve then burst into the air. She knifed through the water, ducking under at the ripple where she'd last seen him. “Don't panic,” Millie told herself. “Surface. Get air. Search in a pattern.”

“Ian!” she hollered, popping up and scanning the river quickly.

Ahead, she saw more rings. Perhaps he had come up and gone under again. Diving, she propelled herself toward him.

A shadow moved in the murk off to her left. Millie twisted herself toward it, and kicked hard. The shadow took shape as she approached. In a last lunge before her lungs burst, Milled grabbed Ian's arm and turned up, up toward light and air.

Gasping, she rolled him face up. “Ian!” she cried. “Ian!”

He sputtered to life.

“Relax!” she ordered. “Float on your back. Keep your lungs full.”

Still gasping, he obeyed.

“Thank God!” Millie cried. If he had been unconscious there would have been no way to save him. As it was, she did her best to tow him toward the opposite shore. It was still a long way off and the current worked against them.

“Kick!” Millie ordered. “Kick Ian!”

They struggled, but made no headway. Every time she managed to nudge them a little closer, the river pulled them back, determined not to surrender its claim.

“I can't get us across,” she moaned.

“Then let go of me and get yourself across, Millie,” he pleaded.

“No!”

“It's the only thing that makes sense.”

“No!” she refused, spending her last bit of strength in a futile attempt to tow him.

At last Millie gave up. Together they drifted with the current. Wherever it took them was where they would land, she thought. “Just keep your head above water, girl. Survive. That's all.”

And so they floated. The minions tracked them, shouting and arguing amongst themselves. It would only be a matter of time before some of them reached the other shore, then there would only be two possible outcomes: capture or drowning. Gradually Millie allowed the facts of their desperate situation to sink in. They weighed down her spirits just as surely as her sodden clothes. “We're done for,” she conceded. Ian did not argue the point.

But just when they had surrendered themselves to their fate something strange and unexpected happened. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they began to move in the direction they wanted to go. Aroused by new hope, Millie churned the water, kicking desperately and ordering Ian to do the same.

But it wasn't their thrashing that propelled them, nor had the current shifted in their favour. Something was pulling them so that they actually cut along like a motorboat.

“What's going on?” Millie marveled. She didn't waste much time or energy questioning the phenomenon, though. Instead she kicked even harder. “We're almost there,” she encouraged.

“Just a little farther.”

Then they grounded on a sandy bench.

“What happened?” Ian stammered, still in shock from being half-drowned.

Millie was trying to think what to say when, “Psst!” , a voice summoned from some shrubs. “Psst!” it insisted more urgently, as Millie sloshed onto the shore. She looked up and found herself staring into an elfish, comical face. She would have laughed if their situation hadn't been so unamusing.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Greetings,” the creature smiled. “My name is Quiggle, and I'm here to offer my assistance in your current predicament.”

Millie frowned, distrustfully. “Well, you can begin by helping me start a fire for me and my waterlogged friend. We need to warm up and dry off.”

Ian joined them, shivering violently.

“I'm afraid there isn't time for that,” Quiggle corrected.

“There's a crossing not ten minute's ride from here. The minions will be upon us before you can gather enough kindling for a decent fire. We have to get out of here.”

“Where to?” Millie asked.

“We understand you are trying to get back to the portal through which you entered Syde . . . ”

“We? Who do you work for?” Millie demanded.

“Uhm, I'm not at liberty to say, unless I first receive certain assurances from you Miss Epp.”

“I don't give assurances to people I don't know, who work for other people I haven't seen,” Millie pronounced haughtily. “And how do you know my name?”

“Perhaps if the young lady would at least hear what is requested she may be able to agree to the terms,” Quiggle wheedled. “I'm sure you won't find them too demanding.”

“How do I know you won't try to trick me with hidden meanings.”

“Millie!” Ian protested. “At least hear him out. There's no time for splitting hairs.”

She frowned, and then inclined her head imperiously as a sign for Quiggle to go ahead.

“My master asks only that you do not judge him before you have had a chance to hear him out and that you follow his instructions without argument. In return, he will use all his considerable powers in your best interests.”

“I can't agree to that!” Millie huffed.

Quiggle stood motionless as if listening to instructions in a concealed earphone or implant. “My master is prepared to offer a token of his good will. You mentioned the need for fire to warm yourselves and dry your clothes. He offers something more effective than a guttering flame.”

Before Millie could object, she felt a pleasant warmth surrounding her — like when you put clothes on fresh out of the dryer. “Oh!” she cried, startled by the sensation.

“Man, that
does
feel good,” Ian smiled. “I don't know about you Millie, but I say let's trust this guy and get the heck out of here.”

“But how can I . . . ”

“If you won't accept the words of my emissary, and my tokens of good will, then I suppose I shall have to ask in person,” Josh said, stepping out from behind a nearby thicket.

“Josh!” Ian shouted, laughing. “Look at you!”