“That’s it?” Rusty asked, feeling like he’d misheard the elder satyr’s words. “They’re gone? There’s no one else out here?”

  Clerigg shook his antlered head and spread his hands. “I can not explain it. I thought the elves were weakening us so that their stormer allies would push in and finish the job. But their camps are abandoned, and have been for days.”

  “So where did all the human— uh, the stormers go?”

  Clerigg waved a hand back and forth, palm up, in visible frustration. “That is the question. They need the river to assault the Sanctuary. If they tried to pass in the North, the hills would slow them, the duskwraiths would see them, and they would be open to assault for days on end. They cannot go around us to the South. The ripping eels spawn in the bogs there. It would be guaranteed death. Even the grach cannot go there.”

  “You still have people watching that way, right?” Beth asked. “Wizards are sneaky.”

  “Wizards ARE sneaky,” the elder satyr confirmed. “But duskwraiths are many and watchful, and can assense as well as any runeworker. They are also quite good at hiding, and difficult to slay without magic.”

  “Elves have magic and that light beam trick,” Ken mused.

  Clerigg scowled, and the other satyrs in the room muttered. Rusty was taken aback, but the Lion reassured him. “There is much history between the satyrs and the elves, and little of it is good.”

  While the Lion spoke, Cerigg seemed to be giving Ken’s question serious consideration, even if he’d gotten a little aggravated. “I doubt they moved the stormer forces through there. We have enough duskwraiths patrolling the skies above the spawning grounds to catch that. And none have gone missing in that area. It is possible but unlikely a lone elf or two could have moved through, but to what end?”

  “So,” Rusty said, cracking his knuckles and trying to make sure he came off as Lion-like as possible. “So there are around fifty soldiers unaccounted for. And they have not broken our lines.”

  Clerigg nodded, staring at him, leaning forward and looking down at Rusty.

  Rusty spoke the Lion’s orders. “Good. For now, remain here. Patrol for several days to ensure that they are truly gone, then set up watch towers and make ready to move most of the bandelo south. You have done well, Clerigg. Remain here and be ready to—”

  “No, Lion,” Clerigg said.

  The Lion stopped whispering in Rusty’s skull.

  Rusty let his words trail off, as he stared up at the old satyr. He could see the other satyrs in his peripheral vision shifting slightly. He could hear his friends shifting as well, moving to be ready as tension filled the air.

  “No?” Rusty finally asked, unprompted. “Please explain.”

  “I must travel to the Last Sanctuary. We are calling the Moot.”

  “Now?” the Lion muttered, its tail lashing. “The fools!”

  “I… ah, we see,” Rusty replied, barely catching himself in time. “Then let us leave in the morning. We, all of us, won today. You deserve rest, at least.”

  Evidently that was the right thing to say. The tension eased from the room, the elder nodded, and the satyrs who had been spreading out just eeeeever so slightly relaxed.

  “This we can do,” Clerigg smiled. “My people shall do as you wished with the guideposts and searching. They do not need me, nor my own bandsfolk here for that. Yes, rest, by all means. My cooks shall prepare the sweethusk for you and your bandsfolk.”

  “That we can do,” Rusty smiled back, got to his aching feet, and led the way to the outbuilding just inside the fort’s palisade, the one that had been set up specifically for them.

  And Rusty found his bed occupied.

  Ran Tan the Merill Jannesiva Dok had stripped the side of the heavy reed frame that served as a platform bed, and piled all the pelts into something like a fort. She sat sprawled out among the various items of comfort, one hoof idly tapping on the plank floor.

  “Ran!” Beth squealed in joy, then ducked a cushion thrown straight at her face. “Ran Tan the Merill Jannesiva Dok,” she recited, shaking her head. “There, I said it all. You’re welcome.”

  “Close the door before diminishing my designation! You dum-dums decline to discern the depths of discipline that would descend upon my dainty derriere if you do not desists decimating mine designation,” the satyr girl grumped. Then she gave Rusty a sour look. “Well, maybe not if ‘The Lion’ did it. But then it would get political, and I have no time for such frustrating frippery.”

  Beth was trying to hold in laughter at the teen’s tirade. Ken just grinned, and plopped down next to her in the nest heap. “You’re getting better with our language. I got the gist of most of that.”

  “Blame Bethany for her terrific tutoring. And your entire fornicating species for a poorly-built mockery of a native tongue. Why do you have three to six different words for nearly everything? It is extravagant!”

  “Says the girl with five names,” Rusty joined them in the nest. Beth folded in on his side, and the four kids just relaxed for a bit. The Lion, showing some restraint for once, let Rusty be.

  But only for a time.

  “We need to ask her of the moot,” the Lion eventually declared.

  Roz popped into existence. “Hate to say it, but he’s right. Best chance we have to score answers without giving the game away.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Rusty thought. “Ran Tan the Merill Jannesiva Dok. The Lion wants me to ask you about the Moot,” he said aloud. “Also the door’s shut now so I’m calling you Ran.”

  Ran hit him with a straw-stuffed leather cushion and oof, did that smart. Then she hugged it to her, and frowned. “So that big-headed boggart deployed the feline from the fibrous pouch so quickly! Fie. His bandsfolk must be chewing his tail to ribbons for him to raise the issue right after such a sweeping victory.”

  “You have tails?” Ken leaned back behind her, shot a glance at her kilt-covered butt.

  She elbowed him in the ribs. Ken squealed and fell over dramatically. “Worry not about it,” Ran declared. “You shall never see it.”

  “Ouch.”

  Rusty couldn’t tell whether that ouch was for Ken’s pain or his pride.

  The Lion, by now, was slumped down and covering his muzzle with his paws. “The Moot,” he rumbled at Rusty. “Please.”

  “What is the Moot, anyway?” Rusty asked.

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  Ran shrugged. “Politics. All the bandelos in a world come together to determine the rules we have to follow, make new agreements, and settle grudges.”

  Rusty spoke for the Lion. “Grudges against me, then? Against him, I mean?”

  “Affirmative!” Ran squinted at Rusty. “I can not ken how they would react if you revealed that you had bested the beast in a battle for control. Likely not well.”

  “Why is that?” Ken asked.

  The Lion explained, and Rusty spoke. “The satyrs think that the Lion’s really strong, which is why a lot of them are fighting for him.”

  “Oh,” Ken siad. “So if they think he lost a battle of wills to a sixth-grader, they wouldn’t fight anymore.”

  “Yeah, and that’s bad,” Rusty said.

  “Is it?” Beth asked.

  “What do you mean?” Rusty asked. “Of course it’s… um…”

  “Is it?” Ken asked.

  “Hang on, he’s getting disappointed mad,” Rusty rubbed his temples. “Roz, please stop making fun of him.”

  “I mean…” Beth scrunched up her face. “The wizards are bad guys and the Unicorn shouldn’t be a god, but from what Ran told me a lot of satyrs have died here. So why fight over THIS world?”

  “That is the question you best be prepared to answer, little lion tamer,” Ran poked Rusty’s shoulder. “For without it, we will most certainly and surreptitiously scurry to slightly less sinister shores.”

  “You’re kind of doing a beatnik thing now,” Ken said. “Alliteration, and all that.”

  “What? Crocodiles? Where?”

  “Never mind,” Ken smiled. “Rusty, what’s your head kitty saying about why we’re fighting here?”

  “He’s not,” Rusty said, staring at the still form of the Lion. “You do have an answer for them. RIGHT?”

  “There is a reason that we fight here,” the Lion told Rusty. “But revealing it would be dangerous, should that secret become known to many others. I am uncertain if I can afford the risk of revealing it here.”

  “After all we’ve done for you? And all we’re still doing for you?” Rusty felt himself getting angry. “Look, Ran already knows I’m in charge of this body and you aren’t. The fact she ain’t said a word to anyone should tell you how trustworthy she is!”

  The Lion’s tail lashed back and forth. “I have little choice, then. You could work your will and pry the answers you seek from my memories.”

  “I—” Rusy stopped. “I guess I thought of that a few times. But it didn’t seem right. That’s a thing a bully might do.”

  “You would not use it against the Unicorn’s magi if you had a chance?” The Lion wondered.

  “With them it’s different,” Rusty muttered. And it WAS. The Lion was pretty much helpless, imprisoned within him. Taking answers out of him would be mean.

  The Lion shook its head. “You and those of your world are a strange lot. But I have considered as we have spoken. I will tell you, and hope that four can keep a secret well enough.”

  Ken, Ran, and Beth huddled around Rusty as he spoke, keeping his voice low and his ears open in case one of the satyrs came to check up on them.

  “So there’s more than one world out there,” Rusty summarized. “But mostly the only ones the Lion and the Unicorn care about are the ones where the Makers visited. The Lion and the Unicorn’s people both have the ability to use runes, which lets them open the old world gates. But the Unicorn’s wizards also know how to move the gates and make them open on different worlds. They still can only go to the worlds that the Makers visited… and wow, that’s weird. “

  Rusty held up a hand to stop the Lion’s explanation. “Then why are we here? We sure as heck don’t have runes or magic or anything like that back on Earth. Are you sure the Makers stopped there?”

  “Maybe we did, once upon a time,” Beth said. “Maybe some of those old stories about monsters and magic and stuff are actually true. Just… not anymore. Maybe somebody found the rune of ‘magic’ and cast a spell to cancel all the world’s magic.”

  “Or maybe it’s a time difference thing,” Ken offered. “You told us about the whole great beast hunt. Maybe all of our own local wizards gathered all the runes and left long ago to other worlds.”

  Ran smirked. “Or maybe your people are smart enough to avoid stabbing yourselves with luminescent pieces of geography? Without magic, how would one tell the difference betwixt rune and crystal?”

  Rusty passed on the Lion’s words. “It could be all of those reasons or none. But I do recall finding places amongst my journeys that seemed like they should have been seeded with runes, but were not. My memories are faded and worn, and I was too busy attending to survival to wonder why.”

  “All this is probably useful knowledge for later,” Ran squinted at Rusty. “But it doesn’t help the now. Why fight here?”

  The Lion spoke, and Rusty felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Uh-oh,” Beth said, and took his hand. “Rusty? What did he say?”

  “He says…” Rusty cleared his throat. “He said that we have to, because this entire world is a trap, and there’s no other way out.”

  “What?” Ken waved a hand. “That can’t be right. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

  “He says yes, but it’s not a trap for us. As far as he can tell, the wizards showed up in Elythia a few years before he and the satyrs arrived. They sealed off every world gate that didn’t go to our world. Which is why they’re relying on the elves. They need the elfgates to go back to their home.”

  “And the Lion cannot use elfgates,” Ran rubbed her temples. “Oh, the moot is NOT going to observe this with a kindly countenance.”

  “So they want to either get the Lion here, or force him to run to our world.” Ken said, frowning. “They probably have something set up there in our world to take him out. That’s bad news for everyone. They don’t care who gets hurt.”

  “We can’t talk about it at the Moot,” Rusty said. “He doesn’t think the satyrs will keep fighting if we do.”

  “Yon wicked furball is accurate,” Ran scowled. “Unrepentant scoundrel. Rusty, if it were not for the fact the villain is stuck within your cranium, I would exit with haste and inform Clerigg immediately.”

  “There may be a way to solve this situation,” the Lion said to Rusty, as his friends tried to figure out how to handle the moot.

  “Which situation? The traps or the Moot?” Rusty asked.

  “Neither. There may be a way to safely remove me from your mind.”

  Roz sat up from where he’d been hiding in the cushion fort. “Careful, boss.”

  “And why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “Because it was not possible before,” the Lion said. “But now it is. One of my possible hosts, likely the one you know as Bartleby, has entered this world again.”

  “How?” Rusty barely kept from saying the word aloud.

  “I do not know,” the Lion confessed. “I did not teach him the way to open the gates. Perhaps he figured that out on his own? Though, I would think that unlikely, his rune is ill-suited for that.”

  “Wait, he has a rune?” Rusty felt his eyelids rise up so high he was sure his eyes would fall out. “He can use magic, and he didn’t come clean with Cy? That… that JERK!”

  The Lion nodded. “I did not account him to be a good man. So this I offer you. Restore my memories of my transferral methods completely, and I shall move to this returned host at the first time I can lay eyes upon them.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Roz said, marching up to the Lion, hands on his hips. “If we do that, then what’s to stop you from taking Rusty over completely?”

  “Rusty is.” The Lion said, and Rusty spared a moment of seething anger to find the Lion staring at him.

  “How?” Rusty ground out.

  “Word the spell carefully,” the Lion said. “Put in a contingency that the memories leave me instantly if I try to betray you.”

  It was a tempting offer. Very tempting.

  But he knew he would be dooming one of Cyrus’s best friends to a pretty horrible fate.

  “Like he was gonna do to us?” Roz asked.

  Rusty thought of the shifty little man, and tried to be fair. But every time he pictured that smug, smirking face, and realized that the jerk had a damn— a darned rune, he just got angrier.

  “Yeah…” Roz said. “If it’s between him and me, I like me more. You dig?”

  “I do,” Rusty said, and glared at the Lion. “Oh, I’ll take your offer. But I’m putting in a catch of my own. A BIG one.”

  The Lion nodded. “We have come too far to turn back. Do it.”

  The spell was worded, the contingency laid.

  And the Lion put his magic resistance aside, to accept it.

  “And again know,” the Lion whispered, “that I am choosing to let you do this.”

  Then it shuddered, and Rusty watched it twitch and writhe, almost seeming to grow, to become more real.

  It spoke, and with a few words, Rusty realized that the situation had just gotten way more complicated.

  “Guys?” Rusty said, and Beth and Ken and Ran left off arguing and looked over to him.

  “What’s going on?” Ken asked.

  “So I gave the Lion some memories back, and some related memories came back with those, and the Lion’s pretty sure one of the satyr bandelos is betraying everyone…”