They awoke and resumed their journey. And now, for the first time, the sky was less misty, and they could make out Ice Mountain.

  It was enormous, higher than the wall behind them, and much, much further away. Even the swamp ended before the mountain began, that lonely island of rock in the northern sea.

  The trees were more abundant here, as were the frogs.

  There were also mosquitoes, and the boys were not immune to these.

  Never had Windston been stung or pricked by any bug and yet here he was covered in welts. That's because these mosquitoes didn't simply sting, but dripped, and their venom could sizzle a hole in stone. These mosquitoes, no one remembered now, were the only pests that could prick most citizens of ancient Gorrals and the Gitra. Theirs was in fact the same venom the Haathuud’s hive-mind ingested millennia ago and used as a model for its own. But now, these ancient pests had become overrun by lesser mosquitoes in most places, bugs whose larva could more often escape predators and who grew faster and hatched at higher numbers.

  In the freezing swamp, they hummed everywhere around the poor boys, stung them mercilessly until both thought they could take it no longer and went on fruitless killing sprees. More and more bugs came.

  One night, they were gone. The boys hadn't realized this bit of trivia, but it was because even these mosquitoes couldn't spawn in the northernmost waters, where that stuff that kept the water from slowing to a freeze was most concentrated.

  The water was so bright teal here that it glowed. Both boys knew better than to drink it. It left one feeling especially cold where one touched it for hours after, especially when the wind hit that spot; it also had a sharp smell that left their noses dry and burning.

  They covered their faces with cloth and pressed on despite these hardships, singing when they could, flipping around play fighting when they could stand it.

  They slept wrapped in all their blankets at once now, together, butt-to-butt in one tent now. It was simply too cold not to.

  On the fifth morning of these conditions, they found that they could see what looked like one very flat, very solid mass of floating algae at the foot and spread all about Ice Mountain. It was covered in trees, the same light blue trunks with only a few sets of dark blue leaves.

  But it was very far away and Frem doubted if Windston could leap that far.

  “I'm not saying you couldn't in the best conditions,” Frem said. “But these islands are slippery, and you'll slip!”

  “I won't,” Windston said, slipping as he slid his feet side to side in a bad attempt at finding good grip on the little island.

  Frem circled up above. “I'd hate to find out what would happen if you fell in.”

  “I'd swim,” Windston said.

  “Can you swim in that stuff?” Frem asked. “When's the last time you saw a fish?”

  Windston stared down at the empty pool of near jelly-like teal water-stuff. “A long time ago,” he said. “I did see a snake, though.”

  “It was dead,” Frem said. “It jumped in there after that frog near the bottom. They were both dead.”

  “Well, I don't know what to do then unless you can carry me.”

  “I can't,” Frem said. “No way. Not with all the stuff.”

  Windston rolled his eyes. “Then maybe we should leave it.”

  “Leave it?! And do what on the way back?”

  “I don't know,” Windston said, scratching his head, annoyed at being asked that stupid question. “Figure it out? We'll have to figure it out.”

  “Okay, but what if we can't?”

  “If we can't, we'll just… ooh!” Windston shouted. “Stop asking me stuff!”

  Frem landed beside him, his hands on his hips, and bowed. “The only man worthy of such a desolate wasteland,” he said. “At your service.”

  Windston shoved his arm away, shouldered past him, staring at the distant shore of what he was sure was slippery algae. “If only I had a boat,” he muttered.

  “A boat would be grand,” came a voice like an old man's.

  Both boys jumped in start, their heads immediately whipping behind them to find the source, though they both doubted it at first. The tree they both looked at, which was on the far side of their little island wedged between two spikes of rock that jutted out from the water, was just a tree, and not a particularly spectacular one at that. It was not much taller than Bombo, only about a foot and a half across, had only one stumped limb, and looked completely hollow at the top where it was brittle with chipping bark. “Or a bridge, I think. That might be useful to people with legs.”

  “Who are you!” Frem shouted, his hands glowing.

  “I am… well, I don't know. I've never been named.”

  “What are you?” Windston asked.

  “I think a tree. Yes, I think so. Though I don't know for sure as I have never seen myself.”

  So, it was the tree. The boys were both pretty sure of that now.

  Frem said, as he crept closer, “You aren't trying to trick us, are you?”

  “No,” the tree answered. “Though I must admit I wouldn't know how to if I were. Therefore, how could I be certain that I'm not? These are the sorts of questions,” it said, chuckling, “that I find most fun to ask myself.”

  “How do you… ask?” Windston asked. He was very close to the tree now and was working up the courage to move even closer to it, maybe even touch it.

  He finally did and the tree giggled. “That tickles,” it said. “Why, that feels like a hay-hum!” it exclaimed. It laughed and laughed and laughed until Windston removed his hand.

  “Oh, bother,” it said, sounding rather glum.

  “It sounds like its mouth might be on the other side,” Windston said to Frem, who was still a ways back and wincing.

  “My mouth?” the tree asked. “I'm a he, not an it.”

  “His mouth,” Windston corrected.

  Frem said, “Its mouth,” and smiled.

  “My mouth is over here,” the tree said. “At least, I think it is. I can't see it, but I can feel it. I feel it inside and outside. It moves. I feel my eyes moving too when I blink them. They can look up and down, side to side, and all around.”

  “Wow,” Frem said. “Great.”

  Windston had leaned in and was peeking around the edge of the trunk at what was the side of the tree's face.

  It was certainly a face. A man's face. It had a long mustache of moss and a bit of a chin beard. The eyebrows were bushy moss and the eyes were wood, though they did certainly move and blink.

  They were currently straining to see Windston, and he thought maybe they could glimpse just a blurry bit of him.

  “There you are,” the tree said. “Oh, it hurts to do this but it's marvelous. You're… wonderful. Really. All that yellow stuff and all that skin. A boy, are you? Are you a boy?”

  Windston nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Me too,” said Frem, crowding Windston.

  “I can't see you,” the tree said. “But I can still see the first boy. Barely. A little. Oh, wonderful.”

  “Why are you like this?” Frem asked.

  “I don't know,” the tree said. “One day I woke up. I woke up and here I was. I wondered, am I? And I said, yes. I am. Though I did not know words. No one had told me words. This was before the songs and the stories and all the other wonderful things I've seen when I've dreamed.”

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  “That's weird,” Frem said.

  “It's been wonderful,” the tree said, suddenly bawling. “And very lonely. My only friends have been the hay-hums.”

  “The frogs?” Frem asked.

  “The hay-hum frogs,” the tree bawled. “I'm sorry, I'm crying again. I just… I don’t know; every time I think about hay-hums, I cry. They're so marvelous. So tickly. So slimy and soft. So wonderful to hear. And yet, I've only felt one just once, and only for a moment, on my bottom,” it said.

  “We've been eating them,” Frem said, smiling. “They're really good. But I'm getting sick of them.”

  “Me too,” Windston said.

  “We're almost out of beer,” Frem said. “Even though I brought a lot.”

  “It's frozen,” Windston added.

  “I've been licking it,” Frem admitted.

  “I know. I've seen,” said Windston.

  “What I wouldn't give to see one,” the tree said, ignoring them.

  “A beer lick?” Frem asked.

  “No, not a beer lick. A hay-hum!”

  “Oh.” Frem paused, blinked. Windston was looking at him.

  “Wait,” he said, and ran back to where their stuff was. “I have one here. We have, like, twenty of them.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Windston said, smiling. He leaned in and peaked at the tree's face. “We'll show you one.”

  “You will?!” the tree asked.

  “Yeah,” Windston said. “Here he comes. He has two. A big one and a little one.”

  Frem handed one to Windston and then they both reached in on either side of the tree and showed the tree the frogs.

  He bawled his eyes out, dripped literal tears, and said, “Oh no! NO! Mercy. Mercy on me. My eyes. I've seen… what is it, dead?!”

  Frem laughed. “They're frozen.”

  Windston laughed too. “They won't stay not frozen. It's too cold, and they're dead.”

  The tree cried and cried and cried. It cried more and more and more. It cried after the boys left it for the other side of the island, and kept crying, even when both of them pleaded with it to be quiet or yelled at it to shut up.

  “Why?” he cried. “Why show me dead hay-hums!” His voice was coarse, and he blew out big wads of sneeze from his nose.

  “You wanted to see one,” Frem said.

  “You asked us if you could,” Windston added.

  “Yes, but not dead. I wanted to see living hay-hums. Squirmy, hoppy hay-hum frogs!”

  “Whatever!” Frem yelled.

  So, then there was just this constant crying in the background while they stared ahead at the other side of the gel water at the big island they needed to get to. It was like this for some time. Both had muttered aloud the idea of maybe moving far away from all the crying so they could think, but that would be moving backward, further away from the far island.

  Finally, the tree shut up, though it did continue to sniffle.

  After a while of that it calmed itself all the way down and was open for questions again.

  “I don't know how anyone gets across there,” the tree said. “I don't know what there is. What is it?”

  “You were just talking about boats and bridges.”

  “I was just saying words,” the tree said. “Giving ideas. Brainstorming.”

  “Well, give us more.”

  The tree scoffed. But then it closed its eyes and hummed. It did this for a bit, and then it suddenly stopped and laughed. “Of course,” it said, and laughed some more.

  “What?” Frem asked.

  “Yeah, what?” Windston asked too.

  “You can fly across!” the tree said.

  Both boys nearly fell over in disbelief.

  They set up camp and slept.

  The only good thing about sleeping on nearly frozen algae that wouldn't freeze is that it's very soft beneath a decent blanket. It's soft, and spongy, and not at all wet like one would think, or even dirty. It was just springy and nice. In fact, if it weren't for the cold that springy ground would be the best ground they'd ever slept on. But it was cold. Very, very cold.

  The boys huddled up butt-to-butt, as they had been, unaware of how many farts they'd added to the tent's still air throughout the night, as deeply asleep as they could be beneath what was now clear, starry skies under the looming watch of the second greatest mountain on that side of the planet; Ice Mountain, the last mountain of black iron ore.

  But that wasn't what drew the Wandman, the real Wandman, to it. For that Wandman they had seen before, the man performing tricks at Twin Mountain Village East, was not the real Wandman. Neither was the one who saved them that night during the stampede. This Wandman that approached them now, hopping like a flea from island to island with sure feet and quickly, was the real Wandman. He, the wandering old soul, was after something more valuable even than black iron ore, and his seeking it automatically made old friends grave enemies, Barufus and four others in their shared order being probably the worst of them. He was after something perilous even despite those others, something perhaps deadly, even to himself. Though now it would seem that he wouldn't have to risk much at all at the present, if anything; these two boys, the irritating little morons he'd been following for days, would be perfect for what he had in store. They could smack the madman themselves, one or both at once! He'd make them do it! And they would, now, thanks to their stupidity in wandering out this far alone. They'd do it whether they wanted to or not, or else die!

  He was thinking just that as he landed on the island. He landed with a soft thud and hardly noticed as he was deep in thought until something he hadn't expected spoke loudly out of nowhere.

  “Is that a hay-hum?” it asked, scaring the Wandman so badly he nearly fell off the side of the island.

  “Shut up!” Windston yelled from inside the tent.

  “Yeah, shut up! I'll blow you up, tree!” Frem yelled too.

  “You'll do no such thing!” the Wandman yelled, tearing the tent from over the boys and tossing it, his other arm lifting his staff, which lit bright white at the tip. “You'll heed me now and obey me or die!”

  Frem's eyes went wide. He shot blast after blast after blast at the Wandman, who simply batted them all away with his wand.

  Windston watched, but even just then, he was distracted by a sudden realization; he noticed as Frem shot his blasts that his body glowed brightly first; in a flash, light collected in the center of his chest before unloading down and out each arm and materializing in front of his hands. He came to his senses and rolled quickly away from Frem in an unraveling set of blankets toward their gear. There, he reached for his sword and grabbed it just as the Wandman pressed his foot up against his throat, hard. The tip of his staff was aimed at Windston's face and there was a very jagged looking crystal of light extending away from the actual crystal fixed at the top end of the staff. Frem saw it and held up his hands. Windston released his sword and did the same as the Wandman laughed.

  He was old, clearly older than the other Wandman. His clothes were weather stained and faded too, though they were the same. His hair was matted; his beard was in knots. His eyes weren't green, but blue, and shot with blood and swollen vessels, likely an effect of the dry air.

  The color around him, Windston noticed, was also not green, but it wasn't blue either. It was dark purple where it wasn't blood red and black, and it was mostly red within its core around the man.

  To Windston, it looked hot and felt evil. He didn't doubt at all that this man would kill them if he could, and it certainly appeared to him that he could kill at least him, if not Frem too, before they could so much as swing at him.

  “That's right,” the Wandman said. “You guess correctly. I am the danger here. You are caught.”

  Frem glowed brightly in a furious raging aura that loomed over and around him like wavering air over heat. That same energy collected into his chest again, but there it stayed, growing as if charging.

  The Wandman did something similar, Windston noticed. His energy expanded and a ball of it collected over his staff before being sucked into it. More and more energy from elsewhere, all around and far away, rushed toward it so that it collected there, and in a larger mass than did Frem's, and with more density and intensity.

  Frem, of course, could not see any of this. In fact, even the Wandman couldn't see it; he could only feel it.

  Of the three, only Windston could see this energy working all around them. He saw it, and he looked at Frem wide-eyed and shook his head.

  Slowly, the energy in Frem’s chest dispersed around his body again, a pale teal, like the color of his skin here.

  “Surrender,” the Wandman said. “Allow me to bind you and I may just let you live.”

  “I'd surrender!” the tree said. “I would. I would indeed!”

  “Shut up, tree, before I curse you blind!” the Wandman yelled.

  “You'll have to kill me,” Frem said.

  “Same,” Windston agreed. “I won't be bound willingly.”

  “Then unwillingly it shall be!” the Wandman yelled, waving his staff back and forth so that some unseen force knocked their heads into one another over and over and over again. This happened several times, each time harder than the last.

  Dazed, they both tried and failed to stand. Another unseen force pulled back their arms and then a yellow band of energy appeared like a limp snake from the tip of the Wandman's staff. It fell all about the ground like a long noodle, and then it twisted and wrapped itself around them – around their ankles and around their wrists. It was hot and it burned, though not so bad as fire; when they struggled it gave them a shocking jolt.

  “I'll surely kill you now,” the Wandman said. “For your disobedience.”

  Neither boy said anything, just lay there on their sides wincing and grimacing every time they struggled against their bindings.

  The Wandman smiled but he didn't say anything else. He packed their things into their bags and fastened them to each boy. Everything was there on their backs except the sword, which hovered behind him as if dangling from something only Windston could see; it was the color of his aura, a small pair of hooks made of energy that hung under each extending piece of the cross guard.

  He led them to the north side of the little island where they all faced the greater island across the way. There, he closed his eyes and, pointing his staff at the mountain, waited.

  Frem noticed the crystal end glow brightly, and there was a whooshing sound just before everything nearby started buzzing, even the boys; they vibrated deep within their cores.

  Windston was more focused on the whirlwind of rushing energy coming from everywhere again.

  The rushing stopped and there was suddenly this feeling of weightlessness. Before they realized it, the boys were hanging in the air like the sword, and the Wandman was before them, leading the way over the thick teal gel of water.

  They landed softly on the other side. There, he commanded them to walk.

  “I’ve crossed what lies before us in a day. But I suppose I can't hope to muster enough speed out of the two of you. Northward. And then we stop at the foot of the great stone mountain. I'll unbind you there if you prove to me you won't run. Otherwise, you'll stay bound.”

  The boys both swallowed, though neither knew the other had too.

  They were scared. They weren't sure why this was happening or even who this new Wandman was. He was as mean and gruff as his voice. With that voice he barked a lot and grumbled too. He liked to spit sparks at them from his staff like those out of Piper Bee's flute. It hurt and the burn stuck around for a while after the immediate sting.

  Still, they planned and schemed, both of them. Windston thought of this and Frem of that. Alas, neither had been able to come up with anything good enough to repel someone capable of doing the sorts of things the Wandman can. Even running away wouldn't work; more than once, the Wandman had leaped like a flea here and then there to peer ahead on what were giant crests of rock jutting out of the water, spikes that pierced the moss and reached for the sky. He could jump twice as high as Windston, perhaps even higher, and he did it at a speed neither could dream of.

  Their only hope was that maybe, for some reason, at the end of his intentions with them, rather than kill them, he’d let them go.