A fourth fish latched onto the tree and now climbed toward him.
There were no other nearby trees he could jump to. He was trapped. They would make their way up here, take a few choice bites out of his hide—enough to force him to lose his grip—and send him falling to the ground to be picked clean by the rest. He shivered, hating his vivid imagination.
A wave of panic traveled through him, and he did his best to shake it off.
Two of the fish were proving excellent climbers and were now less than ten feet from his position. They hissed, clearly excited that they were closing in on their prey.
Desperate, he tried to will magic to send him into the air. Like, make me a rocket pack or conjure up some wings, preferably feathered over webbed. He didn’t want to look anything like those things below.
He concentrated, imagining a hidden energy building up inside him. He wished so badly his adventure had a walkthrough to peek at.
Suddenly, he felt a wrenching and lifted upward. He smiled and stoked the imaginary magic, urging it to send him higher.
He flew another few feet, conveying him clear of the top of the pine.
Looking out over the treetops made him practically giddy. He had done it; he was flying.
A flurry of hisses forced him to glance down.
What he saw stunned him—he still hugged the tree. What? But he floated high above it. What had happened?
There, plain as day, was his body still trapped in the tree.
Hugo inspected his airborne self. He was some sort of see-through spirit. He scanned his entire person. He was a ghost.
And he’d fled his body.
The fish kept climbing.
He swallowed. Everything felt like he was still inside his body. He blinked and drew in a breath. He felt real enough.
His true body was also breathing. How was that possible? How could his muscles still hold him in place? Maybe it was running on autopilot.
There wasn’t enough time to work out the particulars. He had accessed his magic and could become a ghost. There was a term for it, but he was currently drawing a blank.
He needed help.
Hugo willed his spirit forward, and soon he coasted away from his body and to where he thought his friends might be. He located the creek and followed it upstream until he spotted the clearing.
The threesome was still there.
He dropped down.
When he landed in front of Lou and Nelson, they both let out a scream. Nelson’s was noticeably high-pitched.
Hugo talked, but they couldn’t hear his words.
Lou said, “Holy cow! That’s your astral form.”
There was the technical term for it.
“You’re a ghost. What are you saying?” Nelson said.
Hugo glanced in the woods and waved for them to follow him, displaying his most frightened expression to convey he was in danger.
“Where’d you leave your real body?” Lou said.
The golem answered, “It’s his magic. He’s tapped into it. Without any training. Spirit manipulation is no easy feat. Extraordinary! Given more practice, he’ll master talking in that form as well.”
It sounded like the wizard was present in the golem again.
Hugo glanced back to see Georgie led the charge. Actually, the Wizard Itzel.
Lou stared past Hugo, horrified.
When the astral boy faced forward, he realized he was barreling toward a thick tree. He tried to avoid it, but he had picked up too much speed, and all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, bracing for impact. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel a thing, and when he opened his eyes again he saw his legs traveling out of the tree. He’d passed through it, unharmed!
That made sense. He was immaterial.
Knowing this, he charged through the woods even faster, passing through trees and shrubs alike.
His friends and the wizard tried to keep up, but because they had to go around the many obstacles, he arrived at the scene of the crime far ahead of them.
The area around the tree was covered by shadow fish.
A quick survey of the tree’s length revealed the climbers were almost on top of his trapped body.
The wizard arrived first. “Gauntwings! I had no idea he’d sent so many across.” Wizard Itzel noted where Hugo was looking. The wizard spotted the boy’s body and the imminent threat to it. “Get up there.”
He rocketed upward and flew back into his body. The transition into his real form was more jarring. His vision was slightly blurry, and he was lightheaded. He tightened his grip and kicked away one of the climbers. It fell but grabbed a branch halfway down and resumed its climb.
The wizard called up to him. “Jump!”
“No, I’ll break my neck!”
“I won’t let that happen. Trust me.”
He spied Lou and Nelson hanging back as the wizard sent gouts of green magic into the mass of shadow fish. Gauntwings he had called them.
He howled. A gauntwing had bitten his foot. “That’s my big toe you got, ugly!” He swatted his foot repeatedly into the tree until the gauntwing fell away. This one didn’t manage to halt its fall.
Over a dozen now scaled the tree. Why were they so obsessed with him?
“Jump! I can better defend you if we’re all together.” The wizard fired a wild blast of magic upward. It shot past Hugo and fizzled out like a firework.
Hugo counted to three and leapt.
He fell, banging into several branches.
Below, the wizard shot a blast at the gauntwings climbing the tree and then pointed his outstretched hands at Hugo.
Magic, purple instead of the green variety the wizard used on the creatures, flew from his hands on a collision course with Hugo.
He’s going to vaporize me!
Hugo stiffened.
The magic struck him and raced across his body. It also expanded by several inches, coating him in a thick blanket of energy. He felt his arms and legs numb slightly.
Hugo hit the ground and bounced away from the tree. The wizard’s magic had cushioned his impact greatly. He flopped on his back then on his side. He wasn’t stopping. Desperate to halt his somersaulting progress, Hugo reached out to latch hold of a branch. The dense magic around him made it difficult to snag anything. It was like wearing extra-thick gloves. He tried to grab at another branch as he bounced down an incline, picking up speed.
He caught hold of a bush and almost dislocated his shoulder. Still, he held on and ended his bumpy ordeal.
Hugo stood. He cleared his thoughts and took a few seconds to deal with his dizziness. From his left, he heard Lou shouting. He needed to help them. What if the wizard had been so distracted with saving Hugo he’d been overwhelmed by the gauntwings?
Hugo took off. It was awkward trying to wade through the woods with the energy cushion still surrounding him, but as he soldiered on it dissipated. By the time he made it back to his friends, the magic was all but gone.
The wizard continued to blast away at the gauntwings, while Nelson and Lou knocked back the creatures rushing at them with steady success.
Hugo grabbed a stick and rushed over to help.
“Hey.” He smacked one in mid-leap, sending it crashing into a nearby tree. It flopped on the ground and then crawled at him.
“Shouldn’t we beat a retreat?” Hugo said.
The wizard had his back to them and was concentrating his blasts at a throng of gauntwings that were piling on top of each other and seemed no longer interested in attacking.
Nelson batted two away and kicked a third. He grabbed a rock and smacked at the head of another. The boy picked up the stunned creature and tossed it deep into the woods away from the creek.
Lou also dealt serious damage, knocking back five and also kicking away one that had attacked from the side.
Hugo joined in and soon lost count of how many they drove back. He took out a plump one with a rock and then paused. There seemed to be less of the creatures attacking, dramatically less.
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“They’re not giving up, are they?” It made no sense. The fish had the numbers to overwhelm them. Maybe they had stayed too long out of the water and were retreating? He didn’t see any diving back into the creek, but they were converging, stacking atop each other over by the wizard, almost as if they were building together. The few gauntwings that still kept to themselves abandoned their pursuit and scrambled toward the growing pile of their brethren.
“What’s going on?” Hugo said.
“Repurposing.” Wizard Itzel rushed over to the three friends, abandoning throwing magic at the growing mass of squirmy gauntwings.
“I don’t like this,” Nelson said.
They all took several steps back. Nothing came at them. All the gauntwings focused on mounding up.
The pile grew and slowly altered its overall shape. Its bottom half divided in two, forming a pair of thick columns, legs. Its midsection broadened, and arms funneled out from either side. A squat head emerged between thick shoulders.
Hugo studied its noggin. When neither its eyes nor its face appeared, he was disappointed.
“They are formed from shadow magic. The Baron’s borrowed magic has grown so much stronger in my brief absence.” Wizard Itzel rubbed at his brow.
Hugo was confused. Who was the baron? The magicless prince?
Lou grabbed the wizard’s wrist. “Tell us stories later. Can you get us out of here?”
Wizard Itzel sighed. “This encounter has drained me. I don’t have enough to fight a colossus such as this.”
The gauntwing giant flung its left arm out, uprooting and knocking over a tree with just a slap.
“Do something!” Nelson yelled. The boy immediately gasped, shocked at his own intensity.
The wizard turned and charged down the hill. “Come, I have enough to summon a gate. Time to take you to Perpetua.”
Lou, along with Nelson, chased after the wizard. She looked back at Hugo, urging him to get a move on.
“Wait, we’re going to Perpetua?” Hugo tore off after the wizard, surprised the golem could move so fast with such small legs. He now crashed through the woods next to Lou and Nelson.
Behind them, the gauntwing giant bellowed.
Hugo looked over at Lou. “Okay, so it did grow itself a mouth. Now we just need to steer clear of it.”
She appeared ready to punch him but resisted the urge.
They rushed across a flat, open field and then were once again heading uphill. Hugo helped Nelson unsnag his sleeve from a thorn bush.
Their monstrous pursuer vaulted across the open field they’d just traversed. In two leaps, it covered the same ground that had taken them a good twenty seconds. The instant it was amid crowded trees and shrubs, it slowed significantly.
“Stick to the woods. No more open areas,” he said to the wizard.
Wizard Itzel veered into a thicker section with tight rows of pine trees.
They raced down a narrow, needle-strewn lane between the rows. Twice, Hugo slipped.
The wizard stopped and immediately swept his arms about, casting a spell to take them to this Perpetua place. Would it be a doorway in the air or some gaping portal? Hugo panicked. If the wizard made the gate too big, the gauntwing giant could follow them through.
He was about to point that out when the sound of wooden limbs breaking forced his attention to their pursuer.
About a dozen trees away, the giant lumbered through the forest. It thumped at the trees, knocking some back, but these were older, better rooted. The giant resorted to turning sideways to move forward, squeezing through the narrow lane at a greatly reduced speed.
“Almost ready,” the wizard said, his voice slightly strained.
Hugo spared a glance at the portal. A hole in time and space hovered a foot off the ground, about as wide and tall as a doorway. Good, smart thinking. Smaller is better.
The portal was a dark hole with a frame of sputtering red magic all around.
Another bellow, frighteningly closer.
The wizard stopped gesturing and yelled, “Hop in! Be quick!”
Lou took Nelson’s hand, and they leapt through the gateway.
The wizard waved for Hugo to follow as he also vaulted into the void.
Hugo raced forward and then slowed, suddenly feeling nervous. He’d never been one to jump into a pool, always easing himself in. Now right up next to the portal, the rift didn’t look open. It seemed more like it was a solid wall. Had it already started to close?
Branches broke behind him followed by a guttural bellow. He looked over his shoulder to see the giant gauntwing monstrosity diving through the air, its left hand extended and reaching for Hugo.
He sucked in a quick breath and dove toward the gate. His body dropped into the opening, and he felt a jolt of electricity travel through him.
A second later, the combined gauntwing’s hand clamped down on his right leg and tugged.
He felt part of him drive onward. The squirming tangle of gauntwings that combined to make the giant’s crude fingers constricted and yanked even harder.
He flew backwards and dropped to the ground.
Hugo stared at the gateway as it collapsed. But that wasn’t what had him horrified.
He watched his own legs disappear into the rift. A second later, they were gone.
Hugo looked down to see the gauntwing had torn him away from his own body. He was in his ghost form, bodiless.
The gauntwing giant released its grip and towered over him.It let out a big roar, the intensity of which shook loose the needles from the branches overhead.
The gauntwings scattered but didn’t run off. Instead, they flew right at Hugo, their claws out, determined to rend even his spirit body.
Something told Hugo they could do just that.
He screamed as their claws pierced his wispy self.
And this time, despite being a ghost, he was certain he could be heard.
Chapter 10
Nelson Wades Into a Rocky Situation
Nelson landed on his back and rolled, Lou’s hand no longer gripping his. She hit the ground right behind him.
He turned around and leaned over to help her up. Sliding his arm under hers, Nelson employed just the right amount of force and leverage to hoist her up. She grunted in pain, which concerned him, but at least she seemed awake and aware.
She drew in a hurried breath and then situated her legs in a wider, more stable pose. It seemed like she could stand by herself.
Feeling conspicuous about holding her, he moved back and disentangled.
She smiled at him and rubbed her right knee. “Thanks. I’m good.”
Abruptly, the wizard stumbled out of the portal, dragging Hugo through with him. Their friend fell face first on top of Wizard Itzel and didn’t move.
The wizard squirmed and attempted to unearth himself.
Lou raced over and flipped Hugo onto his back. His eyes were open, staring at the sky.
Nelson rushed over and offered to help the wizard to his feet.Wizard Itzel waved off his aid and righted himself. He immediately studied Hugo.
Lou dropped to her knees and cradled Hugo’s head in her hands.
Nelson noted the boy was breathing. “Why are his eyes open?”
The wizard danced his hands about just inches from Hugo’s chest, conjuring up a faint yellow cloud of energy that settled into Hugo’s upper half. Seconds later, the energy reemerged but with much less intensity. The wizard absorbed it into his fingertips and frowned.
Lou registered his downturned expression. “What is it?”
“His spirit form is missing.” He glanced at the shrinking portal, now no bigger than a dinner plate. “They have it. I had no idea they could manage such.”
She dashed toward the gateway. If she dove just right, she might make it back through.
“No, don’t,” Nelson said.
Lou hesitated. The rift shrank more.
The wizard flicked one wrist and pointed at the portal. It collapsed inward and dis
appeared in silence.
Nelson felt the hairs on his arms drop. He hadn’t realized they’d been raised this whole time.
Lou said, “Open it back up. I can get him.”
“No, you can’t. You’ll only put yourself in jeopardy. I’d rather not let Orb have more than one of you. I don’t believe he can do anything with just one.”
Lou glared at the wizard. “Start making sense.”
“Yes, certainly.” He looked around and appeared relieved. “We will be safe here. I can finish my tale.”
Nelson took in their surroundings. They had landed at the edge of a forest, many of the plants tinted blue as well as green. He didn’t recognize any of the vegetation, but it was similar to that of a rainforest, all frondy and viny. He frowned inwardly. Not very descriptive, scientifically speaking. He needed to do better.
This was their first exposure to Perpetua, the magical realm, world, or dimension. He still wasn’t clear which.
It was daylight. Yellow dominated the sky with a sparse population of white and gray clouds. At least the water cycle apparently didn’t deviate from Earth’s.
The sun looked smaller but still provided a heat comparable to a typical summer day. Perhaps it was a smaller star and this planet maintained a tighter orbit.
Lou gasped.
Nelson realized she had been scoping out the view opposite his own. He twisted around to see what had her so surprised.
A large lake stood before them, only it didn’t contain any water. Instead, millions of stones rolled to shore. A wave of rocks broke and crashed into the shoreline, sending bouncing pebbles onto a beach already riddled with them. Another wave came ashore, leaving behind more small stones.
Lou darted toward the lake. She drew up a few yards from the reach of the tide. Nelson and the wizard caught up to her.
Nelson observed several more waves hit. The stones were mostly white or gray, with some black and blue ones. Purple rocks also surfaced, but those were rare and certainly the largest of the bunch, while the blues and whites appeared to always be tiny.
Nelson picked up a white stone, and its weight surprised him. “It’s so light.” He tossed it in the air.
Lou waited until the most recent wave receded, and then she dashed forward, snatching up a purple one and keeping it from tumbling back into the lake. Despite it being as big as a cantaloupe, she juggled it as if handling a tiny acorn.
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