“These aren’t going to do us a whole lot of good down here.”
Skylar opened up the bounty hunter’s bag and peered inside. “It’s a Mobius pouch!”
Aldwyn peered inside. Although small from the outside, it was enormous within, big enough to hold gear ten times its size. Aldwyn spotted a noose stick, dispeller chains, and some traps inside, similar to the one that had snared his tail when Grimslade first tried to catch him, back when he was an orphan cat in Bridgetower.
Skylar placed Grimslade’s pouch within her own just as Gilbert beckoned Shady out from his backpack.
“I’d love to take you along, boy,” Gilbert told Shady. “But I think Marianne, Dalton, and Jack might need you here, to help keep them safe.” Gilbert turned to Marianne. “He’s really easy to take care of. You just need to walk him, once around midnight and again a few hours before dawn. And he has to be hand fed. Grubs are his favourite. But you have to chew them up for him first. Now, bathing him can be a little tricky. You know, maybe I should make a list.”
“I think we’ll be OK,” said Marianne, trying to reassure her familiar with a smile. “Be careful out there.”
Jack got down on one knee before Aldwyn.
“I feel like we’ve been saying goodbye a lot lately,” he said.
“When this is all over, you and I are finally going to go on an adventure together,” replied Aldwyn.
“Pinky swear?” asked Jack.
“If I had one, absolutely,” said Aldwyn, nuzzling up against Jack’s leg.
The boy gave him a final pat under the ear. Then Aldwyn headed for the stairs that led out of the cellar. Dalton climbed to the top step and pushed open the iron doors.
“Send my regards to Galleon and Banshee,” he said.
“We will,” replied Skylar.
And with that, the three familiars left the underground chamber. Aldwyn looked back as Dalton began closing the cellar doors and caught a glimpse of Jack. In front of Aldwyn, the boy had put on a brave face, but now he appeared overcome with worry. Then the doors slammed shut, and Aldwyn heard the clang of the latch falling into place. Once again, it was down to the familiars to save the queendom from certain ruin – but what if, as Kalstaff had feared, prophecies didn’t always come true?
“We should arrive in Split River by nightfall,” said Skylar, who was leading the way across another long and monotonous stretch of the Aridifian Plains.
“Yes, if we journey by foot,” replied Aldwyn. “But we’ve made this trip much faster once before.”
“Oh, no,” said Gilbert. “There is no way I’m jumping on the back of a moving horse wagon again.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Aldwyn. “Besides, this way, we might get there in time for lunch with Galleon and Banshee.”
“Last time, my tongue nearly got ripped out of my mouth. And a frog without a tongue is like a bird without feathers, a cat without whiskers, or a mosquito sundae without slug cream.”
Fortunately, early on in their adventures, the trio had made a pact that majority ruled, so Gilbert didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. But there were no wagons in sight.
As the Three continued their trek, the clouds suddenly began to churn above them. Aldwyn looked to the west, where the disturbance was coming from. He could make out Bridgetower’s tallest spires and just beyond them, a column of grey ash that funnelled into the sky.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It’s the essence of magic soaring to the Heavens,” said Skylar. “The first glyphstone has been destroyed.”
Aldwyn felt something in the pit of his stomach – a sense of growing dread.
The familiars soon caught up with a dirt road twisting into the distance, and although there was little traffic on it, they spotted a caravan of mule-drawn wagons, covered in fabric that was beautifully decorated with driftfolk ornaments. It was no surprise driftfolk were on the move in spite of Paksahara’s Dead Army. They knew the roads better than anybody else and could easily find escape routes if they were attacked by the zombies roaming the land.
“All right, Gilbert, let’s hitch us a ride,” said Aldwyn, getting a running start down the hill towards the caravan. “Remember, it’s all in the knees.”
“A frog getting jumping advice from a cat,” said Gilbert. “That’s just embarrassing.”
The two chased after the wagons as Skylar flapped her wings above them. Aldwyn made it look easy, bounding through the air and landing on the back of the rear wagon. Gilbert wasn’t nearly as graceful leaping aboard, tumbling past Aldwyn into a crate of planters.
“Wow, that knee thing really worked,” said Gilbert as he was peeling his face up off the floorboards.
A butter newt looked over at the familiars from a nearby bed of fungus.
“Whoa-oh-oh!” exclaimed the butter newt. “A cat, a bird, and a frog?! Am I in the company of the Prophesised Three?”
Skylar held her head high.
“Yes, you are,” she said proudly.
“Let me shake your paw and webbed hand and wing,” said the newt, gushing. “I’ve heard so much about you. I mean, the Three are famous!”
He flung his hand out towards Gilbert, who was about to give it a shake when he realised his webbed fingers were covered in dirt from the planters. The butter newt gripped them anyway, shaking vigorously.
“I didn’t even know if you were real,” continued the butter newt. “But here you are. In the flesh.” The newt hardly took a breath. “You’re going to save Vastia, aren’t you?”
“So it has been foretold by the stars,” said Skylar.
Just because it is written in the stars does not make it so. Aldwyn almost said it out loud. Yet here this butter newt stood, like so many other Vastians, believing that these familiars – the chosen ones – would rid the land of evil, counting on them because of a prophecy that might not even be true.
“Our caravan was in Bridgetower when the wall crumbled,” said the butter newt. “But I fear it’s just the first of many cities the zombie hordes will overtake. Even before the glyphstone there fell, many had split off, diving into the Ebs and walking across its bottom until they emerged on the other side.”
“They must be heading towards the second glyphstone,” said Skylar. “The one among the ruins of the lost city of Jabal Tur.”
“Well, I just feel better knowing that the three of you are out here protecting us,” said the butter newt. “Do you think I could ask you a favour? I hope it’s not too much of an imposition, but would you mind giving me your autographs?” He spun around and whipped his tail directly before the trio. “You can sign right there on my tail. Make it out to Nigel.”
“Scribius,” called Skylar. “A little help here.”
Scribius popped out from Skylar’s satchel and glided over to inscribe the three familiars’ names on Nigel’s tail.
“So, where are you headed?” asked Nigel. “Or is it top secret?”
“Split River,” replied Gilbert, who seemed