27. Preparations
“It’s a pity you didn’t come home with me that day,” Dina mused, as she led them down the red-carpeted stairs to the exit. “You would have been back through that portal by now.”
“Really?” Fred scoffed. “Do you really think you could have forced me to go back? After you all failed so dismally today?”
“Back then do you really think you would have fought back if you’d been captured? We’d have posted you straight through that portal. Plop!”
“And you honestly believed my father would keep his word and help you conquer the Earth? Once he had me, he'd have closed that portal, never to be seen again!”
“The Dragon Lord will force him to keep his word,” Dina replied, head held high.
“Good luck with that,” Bob chortled. “You don’t know my brother… yet…”
With no further niceties, and without looking back, the three of them walked hurriedly away from Dina.
As soon as they were out of her hearing Bob hissed, “Give me your phone!”
He clutched it in two hands and sucked the air above it. A dark wisp rose up from it, forming the shape of a tiny, black dragon. Bob blew and it dissipated into nothing. Bob held the phone a moment more, sending a white shimmer over the surface.
“Curse removed, and device protected from further curses,” he said, passing the phone back. “Be more careful next time, dear nephew.”
Fred looked down at Bob. Bob’s Zurunkle. Bob’s your uncle. However unfathomable, the truth had been right there in front of him the whole time he had been on earth. Little and large. Uncle and nephew.
“So… my dad’s your brother? Why have I never heard of you?” Fred asked, hesitantly.
“I guess life moved on without me. We live such long lives my disappearance can’t have seemed very important for very long. When I left, your father hadn’t had an heir yet, so that was the main buzz in court when I quietly made my exit.”
“But surely, whether you had children was hugely important if he never had any! I know my brothers and sisters are always jostling for position, hoping their offspring will gain my father’s favour. I hate it!”
“I did too, and I knew I was never going to have children. Even though I never said, I believe my father knew, and my brother too. That’s why they let me slip away. I wouldn’t be surprised if they magically erased me from the history books too. I wouldn’t be the first…”
Fred’s head was reeling. He had taken a Portal Pill, asking for freedom, asking to escape, yet he had been transported to a bar owned by the brother of the very man who had oppressed him, and his whole nation, all his life.
“So you left before I was born?” he asked. The minutiae mattered to him. The Bob he had met only days ago was suddenly part of his distant past and it really mattered to him to understand how and why.
“I left the day of your parents’ wedding, when I knew everyone would be busy celebrating, so wouldn’t have the energy to care where I had gone.
I was always off partying outside of the castle anyway.
They probably just assumed I was busy elsewhere.
I managed to keep up the pretence of being even less serious than I actually was, so nobody would guess I had the skills or wherewithal to successfully escape.
” Bob looked up at Fred. “Now I understand what you were trying to escape from too.”
They retreated to The Rock Tavern. As they stepped through the door, before a single word was spoken, Bob threw his arms wide and sent a cleansing spell through the whole building. He then closed his eyes, and a sealing spell pulsed from him in red waves.
“What’s going on?” Shandy asked, stumbling down the stairs, her hair a tousled mess, and throwing herself into Fred’s arms. “I was taking a nap. Did the Dragon Lord have any news about Cara.”
“He didn’t just have news,” Fred answered. “He had Cara!”
“Where is she then? Did you bring her back?”
Fred’s heart sank yet again. He shook his head.
“You mean she’s still there? You couldn’t save her? Is she okay?” Shandy’s sweet voice began to crack.
She looked up into Fred’s eyes, pleadingly.
“She’s still there,” he said, holding her tighter, keeping her from looking into his face. “Tomorrow, we will get her back.”
Shandy pushed away from Fred, her fists clenched. “Have they hurt her? If they’ve hurt her… I…”
Everyone watched as Shandy’s disgust and anger formed sparks of mixed magic around her fists. Flames flickered and pure elven magic shone.
“Careful,” Chester murmured. “Keep your anger for tomorrow. Today we have to stay calm enough to work out a way through this.”
Fred, Bob, Chester and Shandy sat down together around a corner table. Bob began.
“This is not a council of war,” he declared, running his eyes along the line of serious faces. “There is no time to reach a consensus with the various groups who would be able to fight down the Dragon Lord. So this time, we go it alone.”
“We can’t let the Dragon Lord take over the Earth!” Fred said, staring hard at his uncle.
“We have to hope that failing to capture you is enough to end their deal and their relationship,” Bob said. “Once you’ve gone, hopefully your father will move on. If not, we will step in.”
“Gone?” Shandy gasped. “Gone where?” She grabbed Fred’s arm, her eyes open in horror.
“It’s the only option. If we attack, they will have no qualms in killing Foxy and Cara, and that is not a loss I’m willing to take,” Bob explained. “Sometimes retreat is the only way forward.”
“But I can’t just disappear!” Fred said. “They will kill Cara if I don’t turn up tomorrow!”
“And if you turn up tomorrow and return to your father, the Earth will be overrun by your father’s soldiers, if he’s to be believed. The only option is for you to escape somehow, with Cara. Then neither side has any bargaining tools.”
“I’m coming with you!” Shandy declared.
There was silence at the table. Fred watched the faces around him. Shandy’s brow was furrowed, and her fists clenched. He could see Bob was mulling over all the possibilities, trying to bite back his automatic protective reaction. A smile began to creep onto Chester’s face.
“I think she should go,” he said, slowly, addressing Bob. “I know you see her as a little girl still, but she’s done amazingly in the gym. She would be a useful surprise weapon in a fight. They know she has powers, but they don’t know the extent of them. We need to make the most of that.”
Shandy let out a big sigh, and unballed her fists.
“So the plan is I ‘escape somehow’,” Fred asked. “Is that all we’ve got?”
“I think we can flesh our plan out a little, but we will need to be ready to act on anything unexpected,” Bob said.
“It’s very difficult once the Dragon Lord is involved.
In other situations I might suggest we try a psychic link between the four of us, but the Dragon Lord would slide on in there as easily as we would overhear people talking.
We need to plan as much as we can, but then trust in each other to make the right decisions.
First things first, Fred and I need to work on a high-grade Portal Pill, one that can’t be followed quite as easily as the one that brought Fred here!
” Bob raised his eyebrows and glared at his nephew. “You have a lot to learn, young man!”
“While you’re doing that,” Chester added, “could I do some last minute training with Shandy? Now we know that we’re up against the dragons, we can work on the best ways to counter them. We can fashion some additional weapons too.”
Bob set all the spells he could to protect the bar, encasing all the bottles of spirits in an impenetrable fog, and left Chester and Shandy to train, while he and Fred went down into the cellar.
Once the door closed behind them, Fred let out a sigh he had been holding in for some time.
“Does Shandy have to come with us?” he asked, pleadingly. “I know you don’t really want her to be in danger.”
“Whether or not she puts herself in danger shouldn’t be my decision to make,” Bob said, his eyes kind. “If she wants to take this risk, that’s her decision. I agree with Chester: if she can be useful in the fight, she should be there.”
“What if the Dragon Lord takes her too? How will that help?”
“I’m sure Chester will be helping to prevent that right now. Cara was taken by surprise. If she had known she was about to be attacked, they would have had a difficult time with her. You saw what happened in the bar.”
Fred was unconvinced. He looked sullenly down at his toes.
“She understands the risks,” Bob continued.
“She knows that if she doesn’t go, she risks never seeing you again.
I can understand that being a risk she is unwilling to take.
Or rather, I can understand her wanting to do everything she can to be with you.
If this is ‘goodbye’, I’m sure she would rather have tried to leave with you than simply sat at home wishing you hadn’t gone. ”
A smiling Shandy swam into Fred’s mind, and he felt a lurch in his chest at the thought of never seeing her again. The thought of the Dragon Lord taking her too, removing that joyous smile, sent anger pulsing through his veins.
“If you choose to leave her behind, if you force her to stay, she will never be the same bubbly girl again. I could wipe her mind, give her a superficial happiness, but losing you both would leave her a hollow shell. If she tried to make new connections, they would never be the same. I don’t want that for her. ”
“I had no idea you were such a romantic,” Fred said, allowing himself a smile.
“I’m not,” Bob answered, looking straight into Fred’s eyes. “Love is more powerful than mere romance. You should know that by now.”
“So Shandy is coming, whether I like it or not?” Fred asked.
“Yes, because she loves you,” Bob answered, “Now let’s get to work on this Portal Pill.”
Bob knew a lot more about Portal Pill design than Fred.