Rusty watched the colors shift and warp as his sister cast her spell. They started out as a round, white band that appeared around her midsection, and expanded into a wide circle that blackened as it went, looking like a strip of paper blackening into a fire.

  “You’re getting better at this,” the Lion remarked.

  “The colors are tied to the runes, aren’t they?” Rusty asked.

  “Yes and no,” the Lion said. “The colors are mostly tied to the way the rune is used. the wizards did not teach you to interpret the colors you assense?”

  “No. We practiced spotting things at a distance and watched each other cast spells, but nothing about why colors meant things.”

  “Hmm…” the Lion mused. “The first few batches of chosen ones were better taught.”

  “Just how many of us were there?” Rusty asked.

  The Lion didn’t answer.

  “The Circle of Silence is complete!” Beth yelled, startling Rusty. Ken jumped a bit, and cursed. Ran just laughed.

  Rusty looked through the blanket-covered windows of the river boat’s cabin. Mere yards away, the satyrs were poling the barge along. Beyond them, ripples and dark forms in the water showed where their grach escort watched for underwater threats.

  No one was reacting to Beth’s yell. They wouldn’t hear any noise from anyone within the circle.

  “Good job, Beth!” Rusty smiled at her, and got a grubby smile back in return. They hadn’t really had time for baths along the way, and her teeth were like a row of crooked seashells in mud. But then, everybody was a little dirty.

  “You purchased the sum of our congregation the privilege of surreptitious speech,” Ran said. “Use it while you can!”

  “Right,” Ken said, glancing over to the satyr girl. “Do you know who’s betraying everyone?”

  Ran folded her arms. “I lack certainty that betrayal is happening in the first position.”

  Rusty looked to the Lion, who sighed, and started talking. And after a little bit, Rusty translated his words… as carefully as he could.

  “The Lion says that he is sorry to have lost your trust. He has always tried to work within the agreements your people made with him a long time ago, so he’s not sure why you don’t trust him.”

  “Honor? Fie!” Ran put her hands on her hips as she stood, glaring down at Rusty. “The old agreements were made when we were many, and our lineages were far more fruitful. Now we are scattered and dying, our bandelos a shadow of the olden populace. We knew not the scale of the war before we agreed to this feline’s aid, else we would not have acquiesced so easily.”

  The Lion had a heck of a lot more to say to that. And Rusty was pretty sure Ran wouldn’t take most of it well. Finally, Rusty threw up his hands. “Look, y’all ain’t gonna get anywhere unless we sort this out.”

  “Is he perchance being persnickety?” Ran grinned.

  Ken sighed. “Look, we came in late on this whole thing. Maybe if you told us what happened, we could sort out some kinda compromise?”

  “That is far too long a story,” the Lion protested.

  But Ran shrugged. “Why not? We go to reassess old accords anyway. Best to enumerate the issues.” She frowned. “Salient points, perhaps, and save the saga for less-pressed times. It really is a chronicle of significant length.”

  “I just said that,” the Lion griped.

  “Shush,” Rusty thought. “I want to hear.”

  “There are many, many worlds,” Ran started, then tilted her head and scratched her horns. “No, that’s pointless, you already know that. Just know that ours was beautiful, and we shared it with the things that call themselves elves.”

  “What was your world called?” Rusty asked.

  Ran shrugged. “The venerables who told me this story didn’t say. It’s gone now, so it matters not.”

  “There’s no chance of getting it back?” Beth asked.

  “Exceptionally unlikely. Now hush, stormling, and allow me continuation.”

  Beth nodded, and lay down on her belly, head on her hands as she listened. Rusty almost snorted; it was how she watched television.

  Ran continued on. “Our world was beautiful. We roamed through forests that made the trees here seem tiny. We hunted wild game that roamed in herds so large you could walk for hours across their backs… well, if they let you. And we made wine of sweet berries, so potent that you would sleep for days.”

  “That sounds boring,” Beth said. “Who needs that much sleep?”

  “Quiet,” Ran commanded, but gently. “There were elves, and mostly they kept to themselves. We traded with them, and traveled with them, and called them friends. And when bandelos disagreed, the elves would sometimes help one or the other fight, but never too much. Not enough to make serious enemies. However, elves had rules. One could not go into their woods, not very far. You couldn’t enter their holy sites at all. And because we trusted too easily, we honored their rules. We didn’t even think of breaking them. Not until the animals started dying.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Which animals?” Ken asked.

  “All of’em, but the plant feeders first,” Ran frowned. “We found out why, eventually. The plants were changing. There were mushrooms, that spread out in rings, and where they popped up the plants would change. It took time, but once the change started, eventually the plants around them would turn to poison.”

  The Lion spoke, and Rusty translated. “He says that it’s an old trick, when the elves want to take a world.”

  “Yes. We found that out too late.” Ran nodded. “The ancestors went to the elves for help with the problem, and the elves would blame rival bandelos, said that they had angered the spirits. We didn’t know any better; we warred with each other. And the mushrooms spread, and more and more animals died, and food got scarce. And we would have kept on fighting each other, if Hern hadn’t gotten curious.”

  “Who’s Hern?” Rusty asked.

  Ran stared at him, then shook her head. “Not enough time. Trust in my veracity, he was a hero. Every bandelo claims him as an ancestor. Which is foolish, because he is obviously the ancestor of Bandelo de Muir.”

  “That’s your bandelo!” Beth said.

  “Naturally!”

  “What did Hern do?” Rusty asked, and realized his mistake as Ran grinned and launched into an entirely different story.

  “No, he meant with the elves,” Ken corrected.

  “Ah,” Ran said. “Well, he snuck into one of their biggest gardens, and found a hole to another world. And what do you guess was in that world?”

  “What?” Beth asked, eyes wide.

  “Fields and fields of those damned mushrooms. And trees full of cocooned elves, that woke up and tried to kill Hern to keep their secret. But he was Hern, so he kicked all their asses until he got bored and pretended to run away in fear.”

  Beth giggled nervously when Ran said ‘ass’, but shut up when the satyr shot her a look.

  “At any rate,” Ran continued. “We fought like mad, but once the lie was revealed elves came out of the portals, more elves than anyone had ever seen before. And we were tired and weakened from fighting each other, and all our food was dying off.”

  “And poisoning you too, I’d guess?” Ken asked.

  “You would guess wrong!” Ran grinned. “We are made of sterner stuff. We can eat almost any meat.”

  Rusty translated for the Lion again. “The Lion thinks it took the elves a long time to find a way to poison the animals in their world. Eventually they would have found a way to poison the satyrs, too, but Hern found the secret before they were ready to do that.”

  “Oh yes,” Ran nodded. “And when he saw we would lose the war, he gathered the last bandelos and took us on the wild hunt. We fought our way into one of the elven portals and rode and fought like made, through gate after gate, until we found a place where we could maybe fight and win.”

  “I’m gonna guess something went wrong?” Ken asked.

  Ran raised her arms skyward, almost punching the ceiling. “The elves cheated. They brought in the slaves of the thrice-damned Unicorn! And we could not do much against rune magic.”

  “But elves have magic too.” Rusty said.

  “Your words have veracity, but lack contemplation.” Ran sniffed. “Elven magic is different. And by that time we knew how to deal with it. Stormer magic is less predictable.”

  “That’s where the Lion was able to help them,” Rich said. “Once the wild hunt made it to a world the Lion could travel to, he helped them fight. They became allies, and they’ve been working together ever since.”

  “He is speaking the truth in that,” Ran folded her arms. “But the pacts made are in danger of dissolution, and have been for some time. We swore to aid him in his campaigns, and in return he promised to help us survive.”

  “He says he is,” Rusty said.

  “No he is not!” Ran shouted, glaring at Rusty. “We have fought his battles for centuries! We have lost band after band, fighting for this abomination! I have lost friends, I have lost family, I was born in this war and I will die in this war unless something changes! We need an end to it.” She said, tears streaming down her face as the rage left her. “We need… an end or…” she buried her face in her hands. “Or we are dead. We will all be gone…”

  Ken and Beth and Rusty scrambled over and hugged her as she wept. The Lion was saying something, but Roz shushed him. “Not the time for it,” the familiar told him.

  Ran cried and cried, crying herself out until her sobs were silent shudders, and she was gasping for air. She was strong, and Rusty tried not to let pain show on his face as her arm squished him into Ken’s side.

  It would have gone on for a few more minutes, most likely, except a high, droning sound caught his ear. For a moment he thought an opportunistic bug was trying to seize the moment to investigate his ear canal.

  Then the satyrs out on deck started yelling about something in the sky, and Rusty realized what that drone was, what it had to be!

  “Ran, let go! Beth, drop the circle! There’s a PLANE outside!”

  It took a moment for his words to register, but the sheer giddiness in his voice got them all moving again. Beth dispelled the circle just in time as one of the guards burst through the curtain in the doorway, eyes wide with fear. “Great one! The wizards are attacking us with a new skelran!”

  “Those aren’t wizards and that’s not a skelran!” Rusty said, dashing out on deck, and waving frantically at the sky.

  It made sense, in hindsight. The Lion had somehow felt Bartleby’s return to this world, after all.

  And just like the last time, he hadn’t come alone!

  For a few seconds as the droning speck grew louder and louder, Rusty let himself fantasize that it was his brother piloting the plane.

  It dipped lower as it came along the river, close enough for Rusty to see a v-shaped flare of cloth up top, and a man sitting in something that vaguely resembled a go-kart. Then Beth and Ken were jumping up and down and shouting too, all of them waving their arms in frantic joy.

  Then a few of the satyrs lifted their bows, and that took some yelling to get them to knock it off.

  By that time the plane had flown over them, but as the children watched, it turned, circled up and above the canopy, then came back around.

  This time it came low enough for the pilot to wave back… though he kept pointing to the side, as he did so. He kept pointing Southeast.

  After the second flyover, he turned and flew off in that direction.

  “What’s in that direction?” Rusty asked Clerigg.

  “The southern battle lines, Lion,” the antlered elder responded. “Although, we are an hour past the ripping eel spawning grounds. Which means—”

  “The world gate where my last host died! Bartleby must be there!” the Lion said, as excited as the children had been minutes ago.

  That decided Rusty. “Clerigg, stop the boat. We just found some new friends and I want to go say hi.”