The Call - Michael Grant [18]
Mack found this alarming. “Hey! I don’t have any enemies. I’m not looking for trouble. I have a math test.”
“We choose not our enemies. Your foes are the foes of your blood. For in your veins runs the blood true of the Magnifica.”
“Is that Latin?”
“You are called, young hero. Called! To save the world from the nameless evil.”
“What’s the name of this nameless evil?” Mack asked.
“The Pale Queen! But we name her not.”
“You just did.”
The old man looked irritated at being caught in a contradiction. “I am trying to move things along. I don’t have a lot of time. My magic is weak, nowhere near what it once was. I fail…I weaken…I can scarce hear you or make myself heard in return.”
“Then spit it out, grandpa,” Stefan snarled.
The ancient glanced at Stefan. “This one will be useful. You will have need for a wild dog such as this.”
Mack thought Stefan might take offense at this, but Stefan only swelled a little bit and nodded in agreement.
“I will spit it,” the ancient said. “I am called Grimluk. One of the first great band of heroes called the Magnifica. We it was who first fought the Pale Que—the Dread Foe and bound her tightly within the bowels of the earth never again to trouble poor frightened humanity. We placed spells that would keep the world safe forever!”
“Okay, then we have nothing to worry about, right?” Mack said hopefully.
“Well…,” Grimluk said.
“Uh-oh.”
“You must understand that this all happened a very long time ago. These were the days before most people knew anything of numbers. We had no algebra. Nor did we partake of geometry. Or long division. Or multiplication.”
“So you had…”
“We could add and subtract. In theory. In practice most people could count only to ten. Nine if they’d had an accident with a scythe. Which was very common.”
“And?” Mack urged.
“And in those long-ago days ten was a very big number. A rich man was an elevenaire. Peasants would fantasize about striking it rich in the lottery and having ten of…of anything.”
“I would have been happy then,” Stefan said thoughtfully.
“So, when we were deciding how long to imprison the Dread Foe, we called upon our greatest astrologers, our mathematical prodigies, importing great thinkers from the four corners of the earth. They worked for weeks and weeks. Maybe as many as eleven weeks to conceive of a number so impossibly large that it would be the greatest number ever conceived by human minds!” He sighed, and for a moment the image faded.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” The face was back. “The number these geniuses conceived was…three thousand!”
“So you tied up this Pale Queen for three thousand years.”
“Exactly. Forever. Or so we thought. It turns out three thousand years is still not forever. And now the three thousand years has all but run its course. In just a few months the Dread Foe will be loosed in all her fury, all her rage, all her sphincter-clenching, heart-clutching, throat-gobbling, spit-drying, blood-freezing, bowel-loosening terror!”
“Dude. No offense, but you guys had what? Swords? Sticks? Pitchforks? We have guns and tanks and jets. So if this Pale Queen pops up, the marines will take care of her.”
“Arrogant young fool!” Grimluk cried, suddenly agitated. “Do you think the Pale Queen slept these long years? Think you that she has no knowledge of your world and its marvels? Ha! All that you possess, she possesses as well. Your knowledge is hers, too. Plus, all the terrible powers of her magic. Your guns will turn to twigs, your deadly craft all obliterated! She comes to kill all she wishes and enslave the rest.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” Mack said.
“Oh? Then how is it that you converse with an image in a mirror?”
Grimluk had him there. Plus there was the golem.
Mack decided against pointing out that it wasn’t so much a mirror as a shiny toilet pipe.
“My time is short, Mack of the Magnifica, in whose veins flows the long-attenuated blood of ancient heroes. You must go. Now! For the enemy has your scent, and although the Dread Foe is still