Day 362 (T minus 3): Middle Earth in Weinberg Station

Paco, a Transit Authority employee, waited for Garbol at the overpass entrance that led to the Weinberg train station. He was a short man, big ears and a mustache, his bright blue uniform and hat making him look like a character out of Mario Brothers.

The wizard drove up in a light blue Chevy Metro with a maroon door on the passenger side, the engine whining like it never left first gear. The front tire bounced over the curb, and he parked on the side walk, the back driver-side wheel still on the street.

Garbol climbed out. He had long brown hair, tattered bluejeans, and an Earth, Wind, and Fire concert T-shirt, pool stick in his hand. He reminded Paco of one of his Dungeons and Dragon buddies after a twenty-three hour run—but with a hint of cray-cray.

Paco looked at his watch. “Is this precisely when you intended to arrive?”

“Everyone’s a wiseass,” said Garbol.

“You… are you a real wizard?”

“Yeah.” He glared down at Paco. “You a real smurf?”

Paco laughed. “I never hear that one before, Mister Garbol.”

The wizard’s glare softened.

Paco started to babble about how much he loved the Lord of the Rings.

“You’ve got something?” asked Garbol.

“Yes, sir.” Paco beckoned him to follow into the overpass. “We never seen anything like it.” The entryway was clear, tall windows on each side gave them clear view of traffic going underneath. “Some kind a dragon thing.”

Garbol stopped and turned to him. “A dragon?”

“Nothing very big. Gandalf could handle them with a hand tied behind his back.”

“Them?” The wizard leaned over, nose-to-nose. “How many?”

“Not sure. Maybe a dozen or so?”

“Fire breathers?”

“Yeah. That’s why animal control refuse service.”

“Anyone down there with them?”

“An employee and some customers. Don’t know how many, but they’re okay. Locked in utility room.”

Garbol straightened. “Okay.” The way the wizard’s eyes blazed reminded Paco when Gandalf lost it in Bilbo’s Hobbit hole in the first movie. “Power and magic are fluctuating like mad around here, so we’re very close to a parallel world. They may have come through a rift.”

As they walked over the highway, a thirteen-foot crocodile belly crawled in from the station entrance, except his eyes were the size of saucers, he had a back fin like a spinosaurus, and smoke poured out his nostrils.

The wizard stopped.

“Oooh, Mr. Garbol. You know what you have to do.”

The wizard looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about? What is this thing?”

“C’mon, man. It’s like the Mines of Moria—you know what I’m saying.”

“What?”

Paco thought Garbol was going to swat him with the pool stick, but he couldn’t help himself.

“You know. Against the Balrog. You… shall….” He held his hand out toward the lizard.

“If I do it, will you stop distracting me with Tolkien stuff?”

Paco smiled and brought up the video camera on his iPhone. “Sure, man, anything you say.” Paco stepped back to get a good side view of the wizard, pointed his phone at the monster, then back to the wizard who held up his arms, waving his pool stick.

“You shall not pass,” boomed the wizard.

The video thrilled him enough, it could even go viral, but when Paco felt the air around him stiffen, he knew this was for real.

The fire-crock snarled and blew fire strait at them, and Paco, startled, fell on his cola, but the flame stopped halfway to them.

Paco picked himself up. “You got to fight the balrog, man.”

Garbol pointed his stick forward and muttered. “Not today, pal.”

“What you doing?”

“Warding the other end of the overpass so that thing doesn’t escape on the north side.”

Garbol walked toward the fire-crock.

“Hey, man—you sure we should do that?”

“Would you question Gandalf?”

Paco grumbled. He sure had him there.

Paco hurried up next to him to keep the wizard between him and the beast. They turned into the turnstyle area. The wizard hopped over it and stepped up to the down escalator. At the bottom a five foot fire-crock tried to high walk up, occasionally lunging to get ahead, but immediately falling behind.

Garbol took the stairs. Four more little dragons prowled around the platform.

“Where are the rest?” asked the wizard.

“I don’t know half of them half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of them half as well as they deserve.”

Garbol glared. “Really?”

Paco cowered. “Do not be so quick to deal out death and judgement. Even the very wise do not see all ends.” He grinned as he winced.

“How many times did you see those movies?” Garbol waved him off. “I feel the nearness of the other world, but I don’t see anything. Something disturbed them. Brought them through.” He looked around the platform and the track, keeping a fair distance from the fire-crocks. He stared at the track and shrugged. “We might as well get the people out.”

Paco took him to the big door at the back of the escalators and opened it. His buddy, Jerry Strickler, huddled in the back with three girls, a guitar busker bulging with muscles in an orange tank top, and a man in a gray suit. They crowded in next to some cleaning equipment and a big barrel of salt.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Garbol. “I’ll escort you out of here.”

“That’s right,” said Paco. “We will not abandon Jerry and Rippin’ to torment and death.” He jutted his chin toward the busker when he said ‘rippin.’ “Not while we have strength left. Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light. Let’s hunt some pork!”

“You’re out of control,” said Garbol. “Contrary to popular belief, it’s not always good to wantonly display your nerdly passions.”

Paco didn’t care what the wizard thought. He was on a roll.

The wizard turned and took a sudden step back. Paco looked to see what startled him and saw several of the dragons now surrounding the storage room door.

“They don’t look that hungry,” said Garbol. “Why are they closing on us?” He looked at Paco as if expecting an answer.

Paco shrugged.

A demented squawk pulled their attention back into the room at the same time the lizards trumpeted and blew fire. The busker croaked out a vaguely western tune completely off key, his guitar jangling hideously.

“What are you doing?” asked Garbol.

“Garth Brooks.”

“Do they pay you not to sing?”

The busker scowled. “I get a lot of compliments.”

“You’re delusional. That cacophony is obviously what upset them and made them cross over.”

Paco stepped up to him. “Fool of a mook! Throw yourself on the track next time and rid us of your stupidity!”

Garbol clenched his free hand and looked at the sky. “You do realize, little man, I can turn you into a sewer rat with a blink of my eye?” He dropped his fist and turned to the busker. “They’ve got your scent. I have to wrap you in a perception shield.”

The wizard stepped to the salt barrel and pulled off the lid, then pulled out a pocket knife to cut the cardboard around the metal rim. When the metal ring pulled loose, he handed it to Paco.

“I wish the ring had never come to me,” said Paco. “I wish none of this had happened.”

Garbol scoffed and let a wry smile escape. “You are a committed man, and you should be committed.”

He grabbed a handful of salt and sprinkled it into a circle, then grabbed the ring and set it on the salt.

He snatched the buskers guitar, handed it to Paco, and pulled the busker into the circle by the arm. He mumbled something and pulled the ring up and around the busker, over his head, and then twisted it around as if tying off an imaginary baggie.

“All right,” said the wizard. “That ought to do it. You play here again and I’ll turn your tongue into a caterpillar.”

They watched the fire-crocks, which had quieted, their noses smoldering lightly.

One by one they turned and wandered away. Garbol followed the last one, and Paco stayed with him. They turned the corner toward the front of the escalators and watched him belly-crawl just past the elevator, the outside of the shaft covered with green tiling. The fire-crock touched his nose to a tile, and the front of him shrank as the wall seemed to suck him in, slurping him up until he was gone.

Garbol strolled up to the wall and squatted, then ran his hand over a tile near the floor.

Paco went on one knee next to him to get a closer look. A hairline fracture split the tile on a diagonal.

Garbol smirked at him. “It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing.”

“Yes!” said Paco. He jumped up and punched his fist in the air.

Day 349: A Cue Stick for Garbol

Whenever someone comments on Garbol’s wizard staff, his pool cue, and wonders if he’s satisfied with it, it always reminds him of the day he earned it.

Two of his buddies from high school also had the wizard knack, so they went through the Brothisburg Academy for the Order of the Dolmenicians together. Rolly Witherspoon was a player who got everything he ever wanted from his parents, and Hogan Lamb was a jokester.

In ancient days it’s said that wizards spent years just learning how to craft a magnificent staff that would complement their inner strengths and weaknesses, but the methods were lost to the modern world, and now each wizard had to find one that suited them, which is to say, the staff found them.

Garbol came into class late that morning because Dame Hoppner made him scrub out the toilets for calling Mark Dempsey an ‘asshat.’ He’d thought it was a bit severe, especially considering the guy was a bona fide asshat. After all, he put kale in the morning’s oatmeal.

Dame Hoppner insisted Garbol hit every bathroom and clean the toilet brush thoroughly after each one. It’s handle was wood, which seemed to soak up the water and never got entirely clean. The experience thoroughly disgusted Garbol, which he supposed was the point.

“You’re all quickening now,” said Kabberhaven. He swept his fancy walking stick across the classroom for effect. “Which means your powers will begin to align with the world, and soon you will come across your staff. You’ll know it’s yours by the way it glows in your hand.”

The idea captivated Garbol and his friends, each speculating on the kind of stick that would match their character.

Kabberhaven kept correcting them. “It complements your character, it doesn’t reflect it or match it.

“I’ll be looking for something bold,” said Rolly.

Hogan nudged Garbol. “He means flamboyant.”

Rolly chuckled. “Shut up.”

“I just don’t want anything boring,” said Hogan.

Garbol wanted something good, of course, but he hadn’t a clue what might complement his nature.

“Can we claim one of the old ones?” asked Rolly.

“You’re welcome to stroll Renn’s Hall where they’re displayed. If one of them finds you suitable, it might choose you, but that rarely happens.” Kabberhaven grinned and circled his staff with a flare that obviously meant to bring attention to it.

“Let’s all go after class,” said Rolly.

Renn’s Hall took up a large corner of the Academy’s land, keeping many lamplit galleries full of wizard artifacts and records. The staffs were dispersed throughout, in a display of their own or in with a variety of artifacts, often associated with a particular mage.

They turned a corner to find Mark Dempsey staring at a spectacularly carved staff with jade inlays and a ruby the size of an avocado pit in the finial.

“Rolly. Hogan.” He nodded to each of them. “Hello, peabrain.”

“Hello, asshat,” said Garbol.

“That’s a nice one,” said Hogan.

“Yeah.” Mark looked up at it, disappointment in his eyes.

“You didn’t expect that one to choose you?” Rolly coughed a few laughs.

“Why not?” Mark’s lips tightened. His eyes narrowed.

“You’ve got to have some pretty good breeding to merit one of these,” said Rolly.

Garbol furrowed his brows.

“What are you implying?” Mark clenched his fists.

“Oh, come on, Dempsey.” Rolly held his hands out, his voice cajoling. “Everyone knows you’re trailer trash. Didn’t your dad collect garbage? And your mom was—”

Dempsey was fast. His punch landed square on Rolly’s nose.

Rolly stumbled back and fell, then pushed off the ground and tackled Mark. As they grappled and punched, Hogan pulled Rolly off, and Garbol stepped in front of Mark as he got up.

“Had enough, boys?” Dame Hoppner marched toward them, her heels echoing off the marble floors.

“Sorry, Madam Hoppner,” said Rolly. “We’ll—”

“Don’t you dare try to smooth talk me, Mr. Witherspawn.”

Hogan cracked up, but Dame Hoppner stopped him with a glare.

“Garbol was kind enough to scrub the toilets in the Academy for us today. Mr. Dumpsey and Mr. Witherspawn, I’m so happy you’ve volunteered to do Renn’s Hall.”

“The entire—”

“Of course, Mr. Witherspawn. We wouldn’t want to leave half a job undone. There’s two of you, after all.”

They grumbled, but both knew better than to resist.

She looked sideways at Hogan. “I suggest the two of you find alternative entertainment.”

Garbol and Hogan walked as fast as they dared out of Renn’s Hall toward the main building.

The staffs had energized Garbol, and he half expected one of them to follow and choose him, but they arrived back with no such event.

“I’ve got to do something,” said Garbol. “I feel like playing lacrosse or something.”

“You’ve never played a game of lacrosse in your life.”

“I know—but I’ve gotta do something. Maybe hockey.”

“Where the heck are we going to play hockey, Garbol?”

“You got any suggestions?”

“Yeah, headcase, I do. Let’s go to the rec room.”

Hogan led him to the back where two pool tables and four dartboard lanes took up most of the space.

“I’ve never played pool, either,” said Garbol.

“Who cares—let’s jab a few and get this out of your system.”

Garbol suddenly thrilled at the idea of playing and grabbed a pool stick off the rack. Hogan broke and sunk a few stripes. Garbol attempted many shots, but only succeeded in slop. After a few games and fruitless pointers from Hogan, anxiety built up in Garbol’s chest.

He puffed air and shook his head with every shot. “I’m really more of a baseball guy.” He pointed the stick toward the front. “Pick my shot like the Babe.” Against the background he saw the stick slightly bent. “Wait a minute.”

He tossed it in a corner and reached for the longest one on the end of the rack, darker brown on the butt-end, going into four points toward the tip. When he grabbed it, it electrified his arm and throughout his body, awakening his mind to his surroundings with vivid detail. His hand and the cue stick where he touched it flashed, then faded to a soft glow.

“Oh, yeah. This will do much better.”

He ran the table, and after beating Hogan in three straight, his pal refused to play any more.

“We’re late for class,” he said.

Bittermeier barely glanced at them as they sat down, then stopped. “You found your staff, I see, Garbol. Great job. That makes three of us today. I think we should celebrate.”

Mark walked in with a big kale-eating grin, sporting one of the staffs Garbol had seen in Renn’s hall, dark wood carved with a nature scene up and down the shaft with lions, gazelles, birds, and lush foliage. Garbol thought he could look at the thing for hours before he found all the creatures and surprises in the details. Mark’s hand glowed slightly where he held it.

Maybe there was more to this asshat than Garbol realized.

“Go on.” Dame Hoppner’s voice chirped in the hallway. “This is a proud day for you.”

Rolly hovered by the door, only half visible, his face like he’d just seen a dog eat its own…you know.

“Get to your seat, Mr. Witherspoon.”

Rolly frowned grotesquely and trudged to his desk. At his side he carried a toilet brush, a slight glow where he gripped it.

Yeah. Garbol’s cue stick was quite satisfactory.

Day 344: Sparrow

“You’re hysterical.” Dwayne had to admit the girl had his attention. This petite firecracker of a girl just pulled him into a diner and told him half his life story. The hysterical part was her saying she was repeating the same day over and over and that somehow Dwayne was the key for breaking out of it.

“How would I know everything I just told you?” she asked.

“Kara, you seem like a sweet girl, and you’re plenty attractive. If you want to go out with me, you don’t have to Google me to build up this elaborate ploy.”

She scowled. “Don’t be such a conceited turd.”

Dwayne laughed. “Did Cooper put you up to this?”

Kara blew air through her teeth. “You’re exasperating. Can’t you think for just a minute about what I’m telling you?”

Dwayne sat back. “Look. If you really want to impress me, tell me something only I would know, not a bio you stripped off one of my web forums.”

“Okay. Give me something.”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“It’s for next time.”

“Oh.” He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Right.” He nodded and gave her a smug grin. “Okay.”

Dwayne thought for a minute. “Tell me I hid Benny’s rabbit’s foot behind the loose kick board.”

#

“You’re hysterical.” Dwayne had to admit this little firecracker had his attention.

“It’s true.” She leaned forward and grabbed his arm. “Now listen to me. You hid Benny’s rabbit’s foot behind the loose kick board.”

Dwayne raised his eyebrows. Now he was impressed. “Clearly Benny put you up to this. Did he say how he figured it out?”

“I don’t know Benny. You told me that last time we did this.”

“Look, you’re kinda cute. You don’t need this elaborate pl—”

“Can it, loverboy.” She shook his arm. “You told me it would impress you enough to convince you.”

“Apparently not.”

“How in the world would I know that, Dwayne?”

“Like I said, you obviously worked it out with Benny. He knew more than I thought he did.”

Kara let go of his arm and clenched her fists. “I… don’t… know… Benny.”

“Look, if you really want to amaze me, tell me something that only ever involved myself.”

Kara sighed. “Okay. Give me something for the next time.”

Dwayne smiled and nodded. “R-i-i-i-ght.”

He tilted his head and thought for a moment. “What did I name the sparrow I rescued from the Mumfords’ cat?” He folded his arms and waited.

Kara leaned forward. “You need to tell me.”

“Oh, right-right-right.” He chuckled. “Okay, keep in mind I was seven at the time.” Dwayne looked her in the eyes, not sure he was prepared for this level of intimacy with a stranger. “Keekeepoo.”

Dwayne caught a slight grin forming on her face, but she suppressed it.

“Okay. See you again next time.” She got up and walked toward the door.

“Hey, wait. You want some breakfast?”

She shook her head and waved.

#

“You’re hysterical.” This little firecracker impressed him, though she obviously had help.

“This isn’t a game,” she said. “I’ve lived this day more times than I can remember.”

“Is seeing me every morning so bad?” Dwayne half suppressed his impish grin. “It’s been incredible for me.”

“Keekeepoo.”

Dwayne furrowed his brow. “What?”

“That’s the name of your sparrow. The one you saved from the Mumfords’ cat.”

Dwayne burst out laughing, then looked at her with new eyes.

“That’s not the name of a sparrow,” he said. “It’s the password I insisted my little brother use to get into the tree fort.”

Kara’s jaw dropped. She threw up her hands. “I can’t believe you. You wasted a day feeding me bullshit?”

“I wouldn’t call it wasted. There’s nobody in the world I know but myself with that sense of humor.” Dwayne hitched his mouth and nodded. “I believe you.”

Kara’s face radiated relief.

“So now what?” he asked.

“Now we have a day to solve the puzzle before it starts all over again.”

“Okay. Mind if we get some breakfast?”

She smiled and nodded. “You really think I’m plenty attractive?”

“Um. Where’d that come from?”

Day 343: Phantom Justice

There’s a lot of misinformation bandied about regarding phantoms. They look a lot like ghosts, except you never see indication of the wounds that killed them or their corpse’s state of rot when it began its haunt. Phantoms are whole, healthy, and mean, and, unlike a ghost, they can pick up a rock and brain you with it.

They also don’t think like human beings. Even if Garbol figured out the third part of their riddle, he wouldn’t know how to satisfy them. Honor, Justice, and Truth had drawn them out—that’s what the phantom captain had said.

Garbol had discovered the dishonor and the falsehood. The current denizens dishonored the phantoms when they dissolved the ancient alliances of the league, and they falsely took credit for bringing the islands to peace. But what injustice had they done?

From his vantage point in the clock tower, the rain gave Garbol a slight edge against the marauding phantoms as they stormed Bodder’s Town, but it wasn’t enough against sixty of them. They bellowed and laughed, clapped and chanted. The smell of rotting seaweed and oil overpowered the air.

Three seamen lit fire to a rose garden in front of a beach cottage, several of them tore down the beach cabins, and one took an axe to a beach chair. About fifty more streamed between houses, shattering windows and smashing doors.

“Stenton!” Garbol startled the merchants’ delegate out of his horrified stupor. “They’re getting ahead of me. Is everyone in their homes?”

“Only a few. The Jennisons in that purple house to the right. The Quiddles right behind us. Most are in the church, plus the men on the street.” The top of the church steeple with a crucifix was just above eye level a few buildings down.

“Great.” Concentrating the smothering power in his pool stick and jabbing it towards his targets, Garbol put the fire out in the rose garden, then went back to work on the phantoms’ torches. “Keep an eye on any place with people in it.

Garbol threw strengthening spells on doors, windows, walls, and pig-shaped topiary wherever he could manage, but several houses had already been sacked, and some he couldn’t see. Plus, they never stayed long, so he had to keep moving his protections.

A few seamen found a rock garden, picking up heavy boulders and smashing them on parked cars. Garbol spread a spell over the stones making them impossible to pick up.

A horde of a dozen moved toward the church.

A cluster of houses to his left on the edge of town had no phantoms. There were plenty in the lane next to it, so Garbol realized the phantoms deliberately avoided them.

“What are those—”

“The Heppisons! They’re attacking the Heppisons.”

Garbol followed Stenton’s finger to a yellow house. Phantoms poked a man and woman with kitchen utensils to prod them out the door, two young girls followed screaming. The wizard whipped his cue stick toward them, a beam of soft white light hitting the utensils, which fell through the phantom’s hands.

Garbol curled his fingers to raise an invisible lane of blue light leading to the church. “Follow it,” he said, his voice echoing through the streets.

The father looked up at him and nodded. He said something to his wife and pulled the girls along with him. The phantoms around them held their hands up and gazed around like blind men.

Garbol gripped the railing, heavy, quick breaths.

Stenton grabbed his arm. “Sir. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” snapped Garbol. “What are those houses over there.” He pointed his staff to the cluster, still with no phantom sailors about.

“Those are the Jargolants’ houses. Most are gone now.”

“Why?”

“When we retired the old merchants league, they no longer received free rent. We gave them a year to move out.”

“Out of the entire island chain?”

“Of course.”

“Injustice,” said Garbol through his teeth.

“I’ll talk to the consortium. We’ll let them stay,” said Stenton.

“Too late for that, though they probably have better claim to this island than you do,” said Garbol. “The injustice won’t manifest here as it does in their world. You can’t just fix it, but at least I know where to focus my attention.”

Heavy pounding reverberated up the street. About a dozen phantoms had reached the main street, led by the captain, and they took axes to the church door.

“Dammit,” said Garbol. “Have you rejected the greatest power of all?” He forced himself to breathe evenly and raised his arms, staff in hand, propelling his deepest strength toward the church door, giving it strength far beyond real wood.

Several phantoms kept pounding, but some went to the windows and side door.

Garbol swept the town with his eyes. Flames popped up all over.

“Let’s go!” Garbol took the ladder down and tumbled out the access door, then sprinted out of the lecture hall, down the stairs and into the street. He smacked a shovel out of the hands of a phantom with his pool stick. He arrived at the church and roared at the phantoms.

“Begone you devils!” He ran back and forth around the outside, fighting staff to axe with some, hardening the targets of others. He couldn’t repel them with any force, but anything they utilized in the physical world, he could effect. Metals and plastics he could make impossible to hold. Wood and stone he could make strong or immovable—or meet with wood and stone of his own. Garbol fought his way around, looking for the captain. A window shattered and a couple phantoms climbed through.

“Damn.”

Stenton came up beside him, swinging a fireplace poker and doing a good job disarming a few of them.

“Bring me a Jargolant. Their leader, if possible. Hurry!”

Stenton ran off as Garbol turned the corner of the church to confront the captain, chipping away with three others at the church’s brick wall with sledge hammers and pick axes.

Garbol swung his staff up and around down and through, slicing at their tools and flipping them out of their grips, all but the captain. They went back and forth, pushing and swatting, sledge handle to stick, never able to grapple, but the captain with the advantage since a hit would not wound him.

They went at it for several minutes before Stenton arrived, an old lady in clothing sewn together from many pieces.

“I’ve got her,” said Stenton.

Garbol pushed the captain away and stepped back.

“By the authority of the Order of Fretz and the overwizards of Mooten, I grant you ownership of the land provided under the pacts of the Mooten League of Merchants, free of taxation or obligation to the Archipelago of Mooten, Klopp Island, and Bodder’s Town.”

The rasp of the captain’s voice reverberated around them. “This does nothing.” He hit the church’s brick wall with the sledge.

Garbol glared at him, then raised his staff high with two hands. Lightning struck, and he bellowed. “I call upon the Mooten land; the leagues of ancient yore. Bring to me the Jargolant sails; surround the island shore.”

The captain dropped his sledge and gaped. “Back to the ships! Make haste! Back to the ships!”

Several phantom’s squirmed out of the church windows.

“That’s right,” said Garbol. “I may not be able to get to your world, but I can call upon those who exist there.”

The captain sneered and fled.

Garbol and Stenton ran behind them to the shore and watched them fight for spots on the launches, shoving off to their ships and rowing like the devil chased them. Points of white appeared in the distance, sales of oncoming vessels. An armada of phantom Jargolants.

If they didn’t get out of the Mooten territories before the Jargolants landed, they would be guilty of not honoring the pacts of old. They would be guilty of injustice, having broken their pact by engaging in a raid while the ancients of Jargolant possessed the soil. The punishment in the phantom plane would be devastating and eternal.

Or something like that. Garbol wasn’t really sure, but his gamble clearly paid off.

“You did it,” said Stenton.

“Yeah.” Garbol dug his pool stick into the sand. “I guess I did. Let’s just hope the Jargolant phantoms are a little less peeved.”

Day 342: The Phantoms’ Grievance

Garbol hopped into his RV and gunned the engine, peeling off the Klopp Island promontory toward Bodder’s Town, sliding and skidding in the muddy road to beat the phantom ships. Whatever else he did to defend the people, he would have to solve the riddle of dishonor, injustice, and falsehood that drew the phantoms out.

He didn’t know much about Bodder’s Town. It was a member of the ancient Mooten’s League of Merchants, a way for the towns in the island chain to band together and trade with larger islands and continents.

The RV rocked violently around a curve.

When he crested the hill before town, the phantom ships dropped launches in the cove and the sailors piled in. He floored the gas and careened into the center of town. Men pointlessly boarded up windows.

Garbol stopped and climbed out. “You.” He pointed to a sturdy man nailing boards over a storefront. “Where’s the highest point in town?”

“City hall clock tower.”

“Take me. Now.”

The man, named Stenton, led him down the street to an old building undergoing significant renovations, scaffolds from ground to roof. Inside was the same, construction materials everywhere.

“What are you doing to this place?” asked Garbol.

“It’s being fully redone for the new consortium.” Stenton led him up stairs two stories and down a hall.

“What new consortium?”

“The Mooten-Pacific-Basin Pact. We’ve extended our influence and modernized merchant law.”

“And what of the MLM?” asked Garbol.

“Dissolved. No more.” He entered two large double doors at the midsection of the hallway. “Doesn’t matter. Most of the MLM’s external agreements were with people that don’t even exist anymore.”

“You don’t say.” Garbol followed Stenton into a large lecture hall. “What about the few who are left? Will you honor your agreement with them?”

Stenton took him up the side stairs of the tiered seats about halfway up where there was a padlocked access door. “No sense in it. The only people left are the Jargolants. They’re just smugglers these days, and the league only agreed to arbitrate between them and the Pargolains, and they’re long gone.”

“Pargolains?”

“Yeah.” Stenton pulled the hasp off the door, the nails only loosely holding it in place. He opened it and crawled in.

Garbol followed. “They wouldn’t happen to be a seafaring culture?”

“Legendary,” said Stenton. “Big ships, and ruthless.”

A wooden path, insulation on each side, led to a ladder which they climbed. At the top Stenton opened a trap door, and rain poured in. They climbed out onto a narrow platform that went around all sides of the clock tower, a wooden railing surrounding it. Garbol could see the entire town.

The phantom sailors were almost to shore.

“What else have they done, Stenton? We know the Mooten people aren’t honoring the MLM, but how have they lied? What injustice have they incurred?”

“You can’t expect us to honor a pact made by people who don’t exist.”

“Grow up, Stenton. I’m not blaming anyone for that, but phantoms aren’t reasonable, and I have to understand them to defeat them. Now think—How have you misrepresented the Pargolains, and what might they consider an injustice?”

The phantom launches touched shore and the phantom seamen disembarked, lining up on the beach.

“You’d have to talk to the historian. All I know is they put a statue of our first prime delegate in the square, the words, ‘Pacifier of the Sea.’ engraved underneath.”

Garbol attempted a ward between the town and the beach, but it was weak, and probably ineffectual against phantoms. “Wait a minute. You guys weren’t at war were you?”

“No. Not for hundreds of years.”

“So you took credit for the peace that was handed down to you from previous generations.”

Stenton stammered. “I suppose that’s true.”

The phantoms walked right through Garbol’s ward into town.

“There’s the lie. Now all I need is the injustice. Any ideas?”

“Not a clue.”

The phantoms, about sixty of them, lit torches, and Garbol pointed his pool-cue staff at them, dousing each flame as it lit, but they all kept relighting, and it was hard to keep up.

“Listen carefully, Stenton.” Garbol kept dousing, and the phantoms kept lighting. “We’ve figured out the dishonor and lie that’s upset them, but to have any chance against these guys, I’ve got to figure out what injustice they perceive. Go find Bodder’s Town’s delegate and bring him here. I’ll hinder their attack as much as I can.”

Stenton nervously ran his hand through his hair.

“Go. Now.”

“Um. Well, you see, I’m the town’s delegate.”

Garbol looked at him. “Tell me, then. How has the new consortium acted unjustly against the Pargolains. Tell me everything you know.”

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“Think, man. Think.”

Stenton opened his mouth, shook his head, and squeaked.

The lit torches gained in number, and the phantoms marched into town.

“Damn.”

Day 341: In the Wake of the Phantom Ships

Garbol stepped out of his RV and wove past a few cairns onto a promontory of Klopp island, one of several in the Mooten chain, and the next to be attacked if the phantom ships progressed as before. They would have to pass by this point to reach Bodder’s Town, about a mile behind him. The wind blew his hair and whipped his yellow rain slicker. The rain spatter on his face. Pool cue in hand, he watched the dark, foggy horizon and waited.

The fog seemed to shape itself, but Garbol realized it was an illusion caused by the phantom ships emerging from it. Five of them, breathtaking ships in full sail, approaching fast. The lack of bow waves gave them an unnatural potency far more sinister than the ghostly aspect.

The only way to meet phantoms head-on was to draw from the ethereal powers, beholden to the laws of their own sphere, not to those of physics. Garbol held his arms and staff high, reached for their world and hit a wall. He reached again, but could not pass the barrier to their world.

A deep, gravelly laughter echoed across the water.

They were gatekeepers. The wizard could only defeat them by reaching into their existential plane, but he would not be able to reach into the plane without defeating them first.

Garbol grasped for ideas. He summoned ghostly powers from haunted depths of the cairns around him and spun the power into gigantic nets that flew into the sky and landed over each ship, but, as he knew they would, they drifted through the vessels to float on the water behind as they sailed on. Phantoms are not ghosts, and their worlds hardly intersect.

They do have minds, though, and if Garbol could conger something they feared….

Garbol jammed his cue stick into the earth, the harmony of his wizard’s staff uniting his senses with the sea, current, wave, fish and barnacle. He bellowed with effort turning his staff and projecting the movement into the ocean.

The water started to chop and turn, deepening in the center until it eddied into a full-blown whirlpool.

The ships slowed. Few seamen, phantom or not, could look upon a whirlpool without fear freezing their hearts.

Phantoms crowded the island side of the ships, glaring across the water at Garbol, their grim faces angry and determined.

The gravelly voice hummed with disapproval. “What do you want, wizard?”

Garbol picked out the captain on the lead ship and kept his gaze upon him. “Why do you terrorize the islanders?”

“The reason is always the same.”

“Speak it,” said Garbol.

“Honor. Justice. Truth.”

Garbol scoffed. “Could you be more specific?”

“No.”

“How are they supposed to atone if they don’t know?”

The voice turned into a threatening rasp. “Are you their judge?”

The ships started to move.

There was no good answer. “If you behave like ghosts, they will treat you like ghosts.”

The captain roared. “It is not our place to cure their ignorance.”

The ships sailed into the whirlpool and floated over the middle of it on toward Bodder’s Town.

“Damn.”

Day 337: Junder the Tree Puller

Junder used to be an angry troll, which was a lot like saying the sun used to be bright. His friend Garbol had changed him. Turned him docile. Given him purpose.

The troll remembered the days when he sat on the men he caught, crushing them to jelly for a delicious meal, but he’d learned to be satisfied with the meats the men supplied him.

His life was tree removal. His bosses appreciated him for it, a feeling he’d never known among his own, but coworkers mostly resented him. He could accomplish more than the entire team in a day, pulling trees up by their roots and clearing away several tons with his bare hands.

A family with three kids had just purchased a house, and Junder’s foreman, Rocky, instructed him to remove a dying cottonwood in the back yard. He bent his knees and wrapped his arms around the bole.

“Don’t rip out my tree,” said a voice.

Junder released it and stepped back. “I have to.”

“This tree is my home.”

Junder scratched his chin. “It belongs to the people who live in this house.”

“I’ve lived here far longer than they. What right do they have over my home?”

“Uh… It is a dead tree. It will fall on their children.”

“What right do their children have over centuries of occupation?”

Junder grimaced. “I don’t know.”

“Go away and leave my tree alone.”

Junder plodded to the front yard where Rocky and his crew worked on an elm branch overhanging the house.

“Done already?” asked Rocky.

“He doesn’t want me to pull it.”

“What? Who? The owner?”

“No,” Junder rubbed his head. “The… the thing.”

“What thing?”

“It lives in the tree.”

Rocky handed a chainsaw to the next guy on the branch. “I tell you what. You tell the thing to come see me, and while it’s here, pull the tree.”

Junder wrinkled his nose and trudged back to the cottonwood.

“My foreman wants to see you.”

“I don’t want to see the foreman.”

Junder scratched his chin. “He’s the boss.”

“He has no right.”

“Who are you?” asked Junder.

“I am the master of this tree.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m inside, dunderhead.”

“Junderhead… Junder.”

“This is my tree.”

“It could fall on the children.”

“I don’t care. They have no right.”

Junder lumbered to the front. “He says I have no right to pull the tree.”

“Did you tell him to come up here?” asked Rocky.

“He refused.”

“What the hell.” Rocky spat and let himself down the tree with the rope. “Show me.”

They approached the cottonwood.

“Where is this guy?” asked Rocky.

“In the tree.”

Rocky walked around the bole. “That’s impossible, Junder. This thing isn’t hollow.”

Junder shrugged.

“Pull it,” said Rocky.

“You have no right,” said the voice.

Junder looked at Rocky.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Didn’t you hear him?”

“I didn’t hear a thing. Pull it.”

“You have no right. You have no right. You have no right.”

“Go on,” said Rocky.

Junder nodded and Rocky trotted to the front.

The troll grabbed the tree and pulled.

“You have no right. You have no right. You have no right.”

He ripped the tree from the ground and lay it down gently.

As the dirt shook out of the roots, a tree demon, a vaguely bipedal mass of red roots with tumor-like growths all over, dropped out and screamed. “You had no right to do that. How dare you. How dare you. No right.”

Junder scratched his chin. “I don’t know what that means, but he’s the boss.”

Day 334: Lawn Treatments

Jonesy drove the John Deere riding lawn mower, pulling his aerator over every square foot of the Martins’ lawn, making sure to treat under the maple tree twice. He’d fitted the aerator with a seed spreader filled with his own recipe for sprite repellent—hexed sand, ground dill seed, and a shredded copy of the New York Times.

When he was finished, Mrs. Martin waited for him in the driveway, her scruffy terrier, Mimsy, on a leash. A tall woman with a pony tail, she wore white slacks, a white blouse, and a yellow sweater.

“That should do it, Mrs. Martin. They won’t be coming around for a while.” Jonesy unhooked the aerator and opened the back of his pickup truck.

“How long will the treatment last?” She scowled at the lawn.

“A few months at least.”

She nodded sternly. “Worth every penny. Nasty little creatures. Let them go bother the Fagans’ yard.”

“The Fagans?”

“Yes. They’re the scourge of the neighborhood and an affront to good taste, constantly littering their place with gaudy decorations. You can’t miss them. They’re the lime green house with the lawn jockeys out front. Lawn jockeys!” She scoffed.

Jonesy chuckled. “Well, the sprites won’t bother you for a while. Mimsy can run around without getting tied up in ivy and covered in tree sap.”

Mrs. Martin’s growl sounded more threatening than Mimsy’s. “Thank you.”

Jonesy handed her a few cards. “Please spread the word. I can’t exactly advertise these services.”

After Jonesy spent the rest of the week ridding a neighborhood of spruce goblins, he received a frantic message from Mrs. Martin.

“Come at once! The property is overrun and they’re getting into the house!”

Jonesy’s sprite repellent had never failed before, so he hurried over with great concern. Had they become resistant?

He pulled into her driveway. Fireflies and grasshoppers swarmed the place—or so he thought. A closer look showed them to be spirea dragons, the occasional bursts of flame a severe hazard.

Mrs. Martin came out of the house completely wrapped in a grey sheet, only her face showing.

“What are these things? Can you get rid of them?”

“Yeah.” Jonesy pulled out his herbicide applicator and filled it with Guinness Stout. “This happens sometimes. Getting rid of the sprites upsets the balance of things a little. They kept these spirea dragons under control.”

Jonesy put on a protective bee suit veil and sprayed the lawn and bushes. The spirea dragons scattered, dropped, and fled.

“That should be good for at least a couple weeks. If they come back, give me a call.”

Another day, another frantic message.

“They’re evil,” she screamed. “They urinated in the bird bath, they ate all my roses, and they…” An uncontrolled sob. “…They said I was an old bat.”

Jonesy knew what they were before he arrived. Seven two-foot gnomes lounged in the front yard, one smearing the words ‘one lone crone’ on the front door with berries, another pulling up the flagstone. Thank goodness they weren’t the three footers. One of them flipped him off when he got out of his truck, and another climbed the maple tree and spat at him.

Jonesy shooed the berry poet away and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Martin opened, blackish bags under her eyes, her hair a mess.

She dropped her head and sobbed. “Please help.”

Jonesy nodded, trying to give her a sympathetic and comforting look. “I was afraid that might happen. The Guiness drives away spirea dragons but attracts gnomes.”

“What can you do?”

“There are only two methods that are really effective against them.” Jonesy put on a very professional and steady tone. These would be hard pills for her to swallow. “You have to completely dig up your entire lawn—trees and all—or you have to put something on your lawn they are extremely afraid of.”

Jonesy saw the hope in her eyes, sorry for what he had to tell her.

“What are they afraid of?”

“Pink flamingos.”

Mrs. Martin’s mouth fell open, and her eyes went wide. Her lips trembled.

“Tear out the lawn,” she said.

“It could be worse,” Jonesy said. “At least they weren’t nymph trolls.”

“Why? What are they afraid of?”

“Lawn jockeys.”

“Tear it out!” She slammed the door.

Day 333: It Takes Two

The bilocation accomplished by some of the saints fascinated Garbol. What kind of magnificent man would the Lord require to be in two places at once? Garbol could barely manage the one.

There were times being in two places would be helpful, but rare was a man endowed with such power, and Garbol wasn’t one of them.

Garbol could, however, bilocate objects, and the refusal of Captain Gregory’s crew to approach the Mooten Islands created the need. From inside his RV, he drew upon his power and wrapped the motor home with the mantles of both places.

Once he’d bilocated his little domicile on wheels, both doors were located in exactly the same space with exactly the same material, but if he wanted to go home, he opened the one that went home. If he wanted to go onto the boat, he opened the other one. It doesn’t make sense to most people, but wizards understand these things.

Garbol stepped to the door and opened the one located in his trailer park. He stepped down into sunshine, taking a moment to close his eyes and let it cook his eyelids. A deep breath of fresh, dry air and he was on his way.

He took his Geo Metro to the Roy Clark Institute of Wizards, or as the rest of the world knew it, Johnny’s Buffet.

He snatched a chicken leg on the way to the back and entered the warded doorway. Inside, the bartender, Alex Frey, smoked a pipe and read a newspaper at the end of the counter. It was otherwise empty.

“Hi, Alex. Anyone about?”

Alex pulled the pipe out of his mouth and squinted toward the ceiling. “Could be.” He took a puff and went back to reading.

Garbol took a bite of chicken and strolled down the hallway opposite the bar. He opened the end door into a big archway to a gallery with several corridors on each side. He took a corridor to the supply room, but no one was there. “This place is dead.” He tore the rest of the meat off in two bites, tossed the bone in a waste basket, and grabbed a package of man-eating grubs, declawed and all their teeth pulled.

In the archives Garbol spied a young man and trotted up to him.

“Hey, you got a minute? I need help moving my RV.”

The man looked up, a half-aware look on his face. He wasn’t much more than a boy, short and straight sandy hair framing a chubby round face. “Uh… okay.”

“Come on.” Garbol strolled back the way he came. “If you do a good job, I’ll let you help with the phantoms.”

The young wizard gasped. “That would be awesome.”

“I’m Garbol.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m Howie.”

“What are you studying, Howie?” asked Garbol.

“Moon beams.”

“Nice. I’ll have to pick your brains when we’re through here.”

They waved at Alex, who swished his pipe stem at them. On the way out of the buffet, Garbol snitched a cheese stick and grabbed a Coke Zero from the cooler.

“I figure a levitation spell is too ambitious even for both of us, so I figure on trying a transmyst incantation, which is why I need you. One of us has to send, the other receive at the new place.”

Howie stared wide-eyed from the passenger seat, nodding his head and emitting the occasional ‘okay.’

“Easy peasy,” said Garbol. He pulled up to his motor home.

Howie followed him in. “Whoa, you need to check your suspension, it’s really rocking in here.”

Garbol threw the box of grubs into a cupboard and grabbed his pool stick.

“Oh, wow,” said Howie. He looked back at the door they’d just come in. “Where’s this go to?”

“Open up,” said Garbol.

Howie turned the knob and opened. Rain poured in and wind blasted through the inside. Howie slammed the door shut, a horrified grimace on his face.

“We’re on a ship?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me we were going on a ship?”

“Didn’t think of it, why?”

“I’m afraid of water—I can barely approach a glass of it without shaking.” He pushed by Garbol and grabbed the blanket from the bed, wrapping it around himself and sinking to the floor. “I’m terrified of the ocean.”

“Mmm,” said Garbol. “You’re going to love fighting the phantom ships, then.”