IF

Clayton Smith

Part V: Colemine, the Prince

Chapter 1:

In Which We Witness a Major Breakthrough

Cole dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed. It was time to accept it. They were never going to get out of the Writer’s Bloc.

They’d tried everything they could think of to dissolve the wall of barricaded creativity. They tried writing, which was something Cole had learned from his father…sometimes, when Donald Slawson had writer’s block, he just wrote line after line of nonsense in order to break past the blockage. The children gave it a try, tracing their fingers in the shapes of letters on the walls, but that just made the pads of their fingers red and raw. On Etherie’s suggestion, they closed their eyes, pretended the walls weren’t there, and tried to walk through them. That plan only left Emma with an incredible headache. The Stranger even fired a few bullets at the wall, aiming upward. They bounced off and ricocheted somewhere into the air above them, leaving the Writer’s Bloc completely and frustratingly unharmed.

They were officially out of ideas.

Cole sighed. He hoped Polly was having better luck than they were, wherever she was.

The Stranger sat down in frustration. The inability to solve this problem, or any problem, set his teeth on edge, and he needed something to calm himself down. So he pulled out his rag and set to work cleaning his revolver, carefully and meticulously, taking up as much of their inestimable time as he could.

The children sat down nearby, all of them except for Willy, who seemed to have a boundless supply of energy and who contented himself by pretending to be a human bullet, ricocheting off the corners of the walls.

“How long have we been here?” Emma asked, rubbing her poor, tender forehead.

“Feels like days,” Cole said. He laid back on the floor and closed his eyes. I’ll just lie here until I die, he thought. It won’t be so bad.

At least it was quiet.

“We’ve tried everything,” Emma pouted, kicking the heels of her feet gently on the floor. “I want a donut.”

Etherie brightened then, and pulled herself into a seated lotus position. “Strictly speaking, we haven’t tried everything.”

“Sure feels like it,” Cole said miserably.

“But that’s not quite right. We’ve tried everything we could think to do. But we haven’t tried doing none of the things we can’t think to do.”

Cole opened his eyes and stared up at the whiteness above. He blinked. He blinked again. “What?” he said.

“We’ve been consumed with the failure of our actions. But we haven’t tried practicing inaction yet.”

The Stranger snorted as he pulled his rag through the barrel of one of his guns. “Feels like we’re pretty inactive right now,” he said.

“Physically, yes. But not mentally. Mentally, we’re all still trying to break through the walls.”

“I’m trying to break through the walls with my fist!” Willy cried, slamming his hand against a wall. Cole flinched as it cracked against the hard surface, certain that the other boy had just shattered his knuckles into a hundred tiny pieces. But Willy’s skeleton was apparently more rubber than bone. “I’m a psychopath!” he screamed.

Etherie ignored him and continued: “Sometimes the best way to see the solution to a problem is to remove yourself from it. Since we can’t remove ourselves physically, we should try to remove ourselves psychically.”

Cole shrugged. “Worth a shot, I guess.” He pulled himself to a sitting position, doing his best to copy Etherie’s pose. Etherie had her right foot drawn up onto her left knee, and her left foot propped on her right knee. Cole pulled his right foot onto his left knee, but struggle as he might, his left leg refused to bend far enough to get his left foot on his right knee. So he settled for a half-done post instead and hoped that it would suffice.

“Emma, will you join us?” Etherie said. Emma nodded, but she had even less luck than Cole getting her legs to cooperate. Etherie shook her head. “You don’t have to sit in lotus. Try shavasana instead.”

Emma frowned. “Sha–sha–?” Her eyebrows knitted themselves together in concern. “What?”

Etherie smiled sweetly. “Shavasana, corpse pose. Like this.” She uncrossed her legs and straightened them out in front of her. Then, with a deep exhale, she lowered herself onto her back and let her arms rest gently at her sides.

“Like a nap?” Emma said.

Etherie nodded. “Sort of like a nap.”

Emma plopped backward, far less gracefully than her friend, but to more or less the same effect. She stretched out her fingers and her toes and lay with her eyes closed, her chin pointing straight up at the whiteness overhead. Cole decided that he, too, would prefer this shavasana pose. He lay down and settled his hands at his sides. Etherie nodded, satisfied. She curled her feet back into lotus pose and touched the forefingers and thumbs of each hand together.

“Now. Keep your eyes closed, and focus on your breath. Make it slow and full. With every inhale, breathe in your calm. Exhale your worries and fears. Breathe in your space; breathe out your stress. Fill your lungs with air, sending oxygen to the very tips of your toes and the very crown of your head. Exhale the toxic emotions of the day into the air.” She demonstrated by taking a long, slow, deep breath in and releasing it in a loud, full exhale. “Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Match the length of your exhale with the length of your inhale. Breathe. Just breathe. Just be.”

Cole did as he was instructed, drinking the air deeply into his lungs, feeling them expand against his rib cage. As he exhaled through his mouth, he thought that the idea of sending breath to various parts of his body was a strange and pointless thing to try…but upon further reflection, maybe he was wrong about that, because on his second inhale, as he focused on sending breath to his hands, they began to tingle.

Emma must have felt something similar, because on her next exhale, she actually cooed. Cole peeked one eye open and stole a glance at her. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“Now imagine yourself as a tree in the forest,” Etherie continued. “You are tall, and strong. The wind blows gently across your limbs, caressing you gently. You sway, and your leaves rustle, and you just are.”

Cole frowned. In his mind, he was a small tree, a sapling, like the one that his father had planted two years ago in their front yard. Cole could see it from his bedroom window, and he saw it every day, so it was by far the easiest tree for him to picture. But tall and strong? The sapling was not tall and strong. He furrowed his brow and imagined what the tree would look like after a logical amount of growth due to healthy rainfall, decent temperatures, and several years.

He was actually startled to see the tree in his mind stretch into an image of a tall, broad oak.

He was really starting to get the hang of this “imagination” thing.

“Now it is time to drink from the earth. But instead of water, your roots absorb pure light, given to you by Gaia. The light is warm, and of a consistency that is known to you alone. It is tangible. It is a light you could hold in your hands.”

Cole heard a sound then, a strange sound, as if someone, the Stranger, maybe, or Willy, was snorting at Etherie’s guided meditation, but from far, far away. The sound was carried to Cole’s ears on the breeze, and it was hardly distinguishable from the rustle of the wind through his leaves. The other world, the world in which he sat with his classmates in a troublesome room, seemed so far away from the forest...

“Take a ball of the light into your roots. As it travels up into your trunk, it grows, expands to fill every fiber. It travels up to your lowest branches, spilling out to their very tips, turning even your leaves into soft, white shapes of light. The energy moves up to your higher branches, and you feel the warmth now, a warmth that fills you, makes you feel safe, makes you feel grounded to Mother Earth, its source. It makes you feel distinct and separate from your fellow trees. This is your light. It fills you alone. It is your light.”

“My light,” Cole murmured. He smiled as the warmth of the earth’s energy spread through him, tingling the tips of his branches.

“The light fills every part of you now, from your lowest root to your tallest branch, and you are transformed. You are no longer a tree, but a creature of pure light. Your energy transcends what was once a tree, and you take the shape of your true form. Maybe you are a rabbit. Maybe you are an island. Maybe you are a glass of lemonade. Whatever you are, that is what you are.”

Cole sighed happily. He was a comet, shooting straight into the sky. He left the forest far below and gazed with wonder at the majesty of creation as the blue sky above and around him faded to black. He shot through the troposphere, through the stratosphere, through the mesosphere, through the thermosphere, up, up, up into outer space, where he glided peacefully, a streaming comet of pure light. And he was happy.

“Your true form has taken you to a new place,” Etherie continued in a soothing, yet commanding tone. “You are where you were always meant to be. You have arrived in your place of perfect peace.”

Yes, Cole thought, that’s exactly where I am. He was speeding through galaxies, watching entire solar systems spinning in and out of existence, witnessing the collapses and explosions of stars, rocketing past novae and supernovae and ultranovae. He beheld the entirety of the universe, in all its complexities and chaotic logic. And he wasn’t alone. Two other comets joined him. That was his mother, there, on the left, and his father, trailing behind a bit, on the right. Together they roared through space, happy, calm, content.

And somewhere, trillions and trillions of lightyears away, across an infinite expanse of space, deep within the Milky Way, in a solar system orbiting a yellow star, on a tiny planet called Earth, inside the imagination of a collective people, sandwiched between an ocean and a rickety old building called the Bates Motel, within the confines of a structure known as the Writer’s Bloc, a teeny, tiny, insignificant white block fell away from the wall that held it and crashed into a zillion grains of sand on the hard white floor beneath.

The Stranger leapt to his feet in surprise. “Willy! What’d you just do?”

Willy, who was now lying face-first on the floor, having dove to the ground to avoid being crushed to human soup by the giant, falling Lego and only succeeding by a very narrow margin, now scrambled to his feet and shook his head violently. “I didn’t do anything! Swear!”

“You must have done–” But before the cowboy could finish, another block high above began to grind its way out of the wall, as if it were being pushed from the other side. It wriggled loose and tumbled forward, down toward the child below. The Stranger sprinted forward and drove his shoulder into Willy’s chest, knocking him backward just as the heavy block slammed into the ground where he’d been standing. It, like the first block, shattered into a pile of sand.

“I swear! I didn’t do anything!” Willy cried.

A third block started to scrape its way out of the wall, and the Stranger grabbed the boy by the shoulders. “Move!” They ran back toward the center of the room just as the third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth block all crashed down from the wall and splintered into sand.

“It’s them,” the Stranger said, nodding at the three children breathing deeply in the center of the Writer’s Bloc. “I don’t know how, but they’re doing it.”

The immense crashes of the blocks sounded no louder to Cole than a set of wrinkles being ironed out of a sheet. He was far, far away, tucked safely in the vacuum of the universe, where only Etherie’s voice could reach him. “Remember your breathing,” she instructed him across the universe. “Remember who and what you are.”

Back in the Boundarylands, the wall was crumbling quickly now, and the white room was filling with so much sand that it began to creep up over their legs.

“Why aren’t they moving?” Willy asked, incredulous.

The Stranger gritted his teeth. He didn’t know. And he didn’t like it.

“Wake up,” he urged, shaking Emma by the shoulders. She shook her head, resisting the pull of her mind back to her body. The Stranger, desperate, slipped his arms beneath her and lifted her up, carrying her to a safer distance. “Try to wake the others,” he called over his shoulder.

Willy leapt up and stood over Cole’s horizontal form, one foot planted firmly on either side of the other boy’s waist. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “WAKE UP!” Cole didn’t flinch. He just lay there with a big smile on his face. Willy reached down and grabbed him by the shirt collar. He gave the boy a rough shake. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” But still, Cole remained asleep to the world. The blocks continued to fall, and the sand continued to spread. It was over Willy’s ankles now, and soon it would cover Cole’s head, sift into his mouth, and clog his throat and his lungs. Willy, desperate now, reached down, grabbed Cole’s cheeks in his hands, and pulled with all his might. “Coooooooole!”

Eons away, a bright comet of light that called itself Cole felt a tug on its tail. Cole the Comet tried to pull free, but whatever had his tail had it good. He skidded to a stop, but the other two comets sped past him, continuing on their celestial trajectory. “Mom! Dad!” he yelled, but the pair of streaming comets arced away from him, leaving him alone in the darkness of space. Cole turned back to the tugging on his tail and slowly began to imagine a world where he was not a comet, but a boy, a boy with parents who were human beings, and not comets. A world where he was on a quest with four of his friends and an imaginary cowboy to find a poor creature of his own creation that he’d banished into sadness…

Cole’s eyes shot open. Willy stood over him, pulling at his cheeks.

Cole furrowed his brow. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice garbled by the flapping of his cheeks.

“Saving your dumb life!” Willy cried. He grabbed Cole’s arm and helped him to his feet. Cole struggled up through the sand, dazed, confused, and wondering how in the world it was possible that they were about to be swept away by a sandstorm.

“What’s going on?” he asked, brushing off his arms and trudging through the sand to where the Stranger stood with a dazed-looking Emma. Etherie, too, was resurfacing from her meditation, and she pushed herself away from the oncoming wave of sand with an easy grace.

“What’s happening?” he called over the sound of crashing blocks. Panic crept into his throat as he watched the walls collapsing around them. He felt his entire body literally trembling in fear.

But the Stranger was actually smiling.

“You did it,” he said, shaking his head with a grin and slipping his newly cleaned six-shooter back into its holster. He’d snatched it off the floor just before the sand swallowed it up. “I don’t know how, but you did it.”

“We did?” Emma breathed, her eyes wide with amazement. “I was a Danish.”

“And I was–” Cole trailed off, trying to remember the specifics of his trance. The memory was slipping away, like water down a drain. Something about a planet...wasn’t it? Or a star? “I don’t…really remember,” he said softly. He glanced over at Etherie. “How did we do it?”

“We stopped focusing so hard on the problem and just let our actual selves be,” she said with a satisfied smile. “And in doing so, we beat writer’s block.”

The group huddled together as they watched the blocks of the southern wall come tumbling down, falling like boulders in a landslide. A dark night sky set the backdrop for the world on the other side, its billions of stars twinkling and winking in the distance, beckoning the captors of the Writer’s Bloc to a wide open land and the fresh air of freedom.

“We really did it!” Cole cried, throwing his arms around Etherie. “You did it!”

“No,” she said, smiling at him strangely. “I think we all did.”

“Don’t know about you,” the Stranger said, stepping forward onto the pile of sand, “but I’ve had just about enough of this place.”

Cole couldn’t agree more. “Nothing to stop us now but a little bit of beach.”

Chapter 2:

In Which a Bad Dream Gets the Upper Hand

Dr. Mandrill stepped into the motel room. The floorboards beneath the thin carpet groaned with a low, eerie creak. He smiled. “Horror motifs.”

“The bloc isssssh there,” the Tooth Fairy hissed, curling one of his claws toward a door in the back of the room.

Dr. Mandrill strode over to the door and pushed it open. His hand searched the wall for a light switch, and when he flipped it, a sickly-yellow glow flickered to live from a fluorescent bulb overhead. The room before him was a small, sparse bathroom with white tile walls. Dr. Mandrill yanked back the shower curtain, nearly pulling it from its squeaky metal rings. “Here,” he instructed.

The Tooth Fairy hunched into the room, the claws on its toes clicking against the dry tile.

“Yesssssh,” he whispered. He traced one finger over the wall tiles, almost tenderly. “Yessssssh,” he whispered again. He clicked over to the far side of the bathroom, a mere two steps for the massive creature, and he lowered his shoulder and rammed forward, driving his sharp bones into the shower wall. Pieces of tile broke and fell away, clattering into the porcelain tub.

“Again,” the dentist instructed.

The Tooth Fairy hit the wall again, and again, driving harder and harder. He broke through the tiles and smashed through the hard plaster beneath, breaking it loose so that it fell away in dusty chunks, exposing the structure’s wooden frame. The Tooth Fairy hissed and grabbed two vertical two-by-fours with its huge, hungry hands and ripped them out with a loud CRACK. A piece of the outside wall came out with the studs. It should have been faded, weathered clapboard, like the other exterior walls of the motel, but instead what came back with the beams was a huge, white brick.

Mandrill rubbed his hands together excitedly. They had broken through to the Bloc.

“Once more,” he said.

The Tooth Fairy let loose a hot, angry breath from the back of his throat, a breath that rattled the shower curtain rings on the rod. He took another step back, then rammed his shoulder forward, hard. His legs smashed through the bathtub, exploding it outward, and with a furious hiss, he blasted through the outer wall, stumbling angrily into the blank white room on the other side.

The dentist sneered as he followed the nightmare into the Writer’s Bloc.

The sand made it hard to cross the expanse of the room, but it was still preferable to the plain white floor that had threatened to drive Cole mad. His feet sank into the fine powder, and it poured into his shoes, but the discomfort it caused was far outweighed by the relief the broken blocks promised. The beautiful night sky beckoned him from the other side of the wall, blazoned with the brightest stars he’d ever seen. Between their newfound freedom and his recent discovery of transcendental meditation, Cole was feeling fine.

Then he remembered that Polly was still out there somewhere in the infinite worlds, alone and uncertain, and probably scared. His good feelings faded and drew back. His cheeks burned hot and red with shame; he’d been feeling hopeful when one of his friends was probably feeling the most hopeless she’d ever been.

He was shaken from his reverie by a loud WHUMP from somewhere off to his right.

“What was that?” he whispered cautiously, craning his neck back over his shoulder.

“What was what?” asked Willy as he stomped through the sand, kicking it high into the air with every step.

Cole heard the sound again.

WHUMP.

“That.” This time, Willy heard it too.

WHUMP.

One of the giant white bricks shuddered, and dust puffed out from the edges.

“What is it?” Willy asked, screwing up his face and wiping his nose with his arm.

“I think someone’s trying to break through,” Cole said quietly. Then he added, “Or something.” He turned and hurried his pace, running after the Stranger and the girls. Willy followed close behind, trudging quickly through the shifting sand.

“Maybe it’s a good guy,” Willy suggested.

“Maybe it’s a bad guy,” Cole frowned.

Somehow, he felt that was much, much more likely.

They didn’t have to wait long to find out. With the very next WHUMP, the white block broke loose of its mooring, and then it disappeared into the darkness as it was yanked back through the wall.

All five of the travelers heard the sound that time. The Stranger slid to a stop in the sand, whirled around, and slipped the revolver from its holster. “Keep going,” he instructed the children. “Go through the hole, and don’t look back.”

“But you–” Cole began.

“I’m right behind you,” the Stranger snapped.

Cole turned and ran, trailing behind the other children by a few steps. But he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the wall, and so he watched with growing horror as a monstrous, shiny-black creature burst through the bricks, its mouth of daggers opened wide and snapping in his direction, dripping with pink drool of anticipation.

The Tooth Fairy smelled children.

He unfurled his huge, black wings and flapped them hard, lifting his long, twisted body into the air. His wings sent blasts of stale air across the Bloc. They whipped the white sand into a frenzy, and soon there was a full-on sandstorm ripping across the huge, white room.

“Keep going!” the Stranger shouted over the sound of the Tooth Fairy’s beating wings. The children scrambled toward the huge hole in the wall and the calm night air beyond.

The Stranger leveled the barrel of his gun at the approaching nightmare. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew what his hands were capable of with this instrument in his hand. Just as he began to squeeze the trigger, he caught a movement from the far wall, from over the nightmare’s shoulder. He spared a glance toward the motion and saw a bald man with a salt-and-pepper beard step through the hole that the nightmare had blasted through the wall. The man wore a long, white doctor’s coat and a thin smile of amusement.

The dentist, the Stranger thought.

The Tooth Fairy screeched, squealing out a piercing, guttural howl from the back of his throat that made the hairs on the back of the Stranger’s neck prickle.

He turned his attention back to the nightmare.

He’d deal with the dentist soon enough.

First things first.

He squeezed the trigger with practiced grace and unloaded all six bullets at the screaming monster. The bullets found their marks, as they always did; one to the head, one to the gut, one to each shoulder, and two to the chest. But just before the bullets made contact, the thing’s skin actually spiraled open, sensing the bullets and making a tunnel for them to pass through. All six slugs sailed through the nightmare as if he were made of smoke. Once the bullets were through, the skin closed back up, and the nightmare was solid once more.

The Stranger cursed under his breath. He spun the gun back into its holster and crouched low, ready to leap, as the nightmare darted closer. The creature with no eyes opened its mouth even wider, displaying all three rows of its razor-sharp teeth. It slashed down at the cowboy, teeth-first. The Stranger sprang to the side just as the Tooth Fairy flashed past, his teeth snapping against empty air. The Stranger rolled away, but the monster reached out with one of his feet and caught the cowboy in the shoulder with his talons, sinking the sharp claws into the IF’s flesh. The Stranger screamed in pain as four spots of blood blossomed across his shirt until they melted together and formed a huge, red pool under the nightmare’s claws. The Tooth Fairy swung its other foot over and gripped the cowboy by the other shoulder, too, clutching him tightly. The Tooth Fairy flapped his dark wings and rose into the air, lifting the Stranger off of his feet. “I haven’t eaten in dayssssh,” the creature hissed, licking his teeth hungrily.

The Stranger dangled helplessly from the Tooth Fairy’s rear talons. The nightmare reached down with one hand as the small mouth in the center of its palm opened wide and smacked its lips, ready to taste the Stranger’s teeth.

But then the Tooth Fairy stopped. He cocked his head suddenly to the side, focusing intently on a disturbance that was occurring on the other side of the room.

The children were nearing the edge of the Bloc. The Tooth Fairy didn’t know what awaited them on the other side, nor did he have any inkling how much power a nightmare would have there. He had to stop the children, to claim their teeth here, in the Writer’s Bloc, or else risk losing them forever. He opened his claws, and the Stranger’s shoulders slipped. The cowboy fell through the air and slammed into the mound of sand. The air exploded out of his lungs. He lay there, dazed and wheezing, scratching the heels of his boots against the sand.

“Faster!” Cole cried, chancing a look over his shoulder. The terrifying creature was speeding toward them now, his terrible wings unfurled and flapping like leather sails.

Emma huffed and puffed her way up a sand dune. “I can’t!” she cried. She fell to her hands and knees. Her hair hung down over her face in sweaty tangles. Her cheeks burned red as she fought to catch her breath. “I can’t,” she said again.

Cole reached down to help her up, but it was Willy who took her hand first. “Come on,” he said, “just roll down.” He pulled Emma to the top of the dune and gave her a gentle shove over the other side. With a yelp of surprise, Emma went tumbling down the sand and rolled to within a few feet of the wall, where Etherie pulled her to her feet and helped her toward the peaceful land beyond the Bloc.

Cole looked at Willy.

Willy looked at Cole.

“What?” Willy asked.

The nightmare screamed again, a shrill, throat-bursting sound that shook the sand beneath their feet. Cole clapped his hands over his ears, and terror gripped every molecule of his body.

The creature’s scream had been close.

Very close.

He turned slowly, every molecule of his body trembling. And there, hovering just three feet above his head, was the Tooth Fairy. He looked down on the boys with his empty eyes and stretched his mouth open wide. His long, black lizard tongue uncurled and licked the creature’s lips. “Teeeeeeeeth,” the Tooth Fairy rasped.

Cole’s knees turned to water. He fell down on his seat, staring dumbly up at the massive monster from the nightmare lands. “Come on, Cole!” Willy screamed, tugging at Cole’s shirt. But Cole didn’t respond. He couldn’t respond.

In the face of such terror, his brain couldn’t remember how to work.

Willy tugged a few more times, then flapped his arms in helplessness. The nightmare was closer now, and Willy could smell the sourness of the creature’s breath as it hovered above them. “Come on, Cole!” he shouted again. But Cole didn’t respond, and Willy couldn’t wait any longer. He turned and ran down the sand hill. He followed the girls through the hole in the wall and into the imagination beyond.

At least they’re safe, a quiet voice whispered in Cole’s mind. At least they’re safe for now.

The Tooth Fairy folded in his wings and crashed to the ground. He stalked the terrified child, circling around to the back, almost dancing now, enjoying the advantage and savoring the moment. The creature tiptoed behind him, struggling for balance on the shifting sand. Then he uncurled the long fingers, exposing the open mouth in the center of his palm.

Then he wrapped his hand delicately around Cole’s face.

Cole was so frozen with terror that he couldn’t even scream.

The lips in the Tooth Fairy’s palm worked against Cole’s mouth, prying it open with surprising strength. Once his mouth was open, and his teeth were exposed, the mouth in the hand drew in a deep breath.

Cole fainted away to cold, lonely darkness as his teeth begin to wobble in his gums.

The last thing he heard was the rasping voice of the Tooth Fairy, urging his hand to its terrible work:

“Feeeeeeeeeed.”

The Stranger struggled to his feet. He clutched his bruised ribs as he stumbled forward, lost his footing, and hit the sand again. He grunted and pushed himself back to his feet. Pain ripped through his shoulders, flaming in his lungs and setting fire to every breath.

“That was quite a tumble,” came a soft, low voice behind him. The Stranger turned, his eyes wide with shock. No one had ever been able to sneak up on him.

No one. Ever.

But today, that streak was broken.

With the hand that wasn’t gripping his side, the Stranger reached for his six-shooter, but the dentist was fast…much faster than he looked. He held a hypodermic needle in one hand, and as soon as the Stranger flinched, the dentist stabbed the needle into the back of his palm.

“Easy, partner,” said the dentist with a wry grin. “Let’s put those shooting hands to rest.”

The lidocaine mixture went straight to work, spreading through the Stranger’s hand like water through a gulley. He felt an instant tingling sensation from his wrist to the tips of his fingers, and in a matter of seconds, the entire hand was numb. The Stranger gasped and worked the fingers; they felt rubbery, and huge, and as useless as a sandbag tied to the end of his arm.

“My own concoction,” the dentist said admiringly, holding up the syringe. “Works fast, doesn’t it?” The Stranger snarled and flashed his good hand out to strike the dentist, but Mandrill balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it into the Stranger’s bruised ribs. Bright lights of pain exploded in the cowboy’s head. The world tilted away, and he crumpled to his knees. The dentist reached down and injected the remaining anesthesia into the other hand. “There, now. That ought to tame you some.”

The Stranger grunted, a low, guttural moan of frustration and helplessness that he worked hard to bury in his throat. He lifted his eyes and looked over at Cole. The black nightmare creature had its hand over the boys mouth, its own lips pulled back in a cruel smile. He glanced beyond the nightmare and saw that the other children had made it safely through the gap in the wall. He turned his blazing, furious eyes back to the dentist, who was capping the syringe. The Stranger pushed his rage down into his legs, rolled back onto his toes, and sprang at the doctor with a vicious snarl. He drove his shoulder into the other man’s chest, and they both went toppling down into the sand.

He wasn’t used to fighting without his hands, or without his gun. As he rolled over the dentist, he cocked his right arm and brought his elbow down toward the dentist’s nose. The dentist dodged easily, and the cowboy’s elbow plunged into sand. The dentist kicked out and caught the Stranger solidly in the hip. The Stranger rolled away and clamored back to his feet, which was no easy task without the help of his hands, which dangled uselessly from his wrists and refused to respond to even the most rudimentary commands.

“Fortunately, I don’t need to preserve your teeth,” the dentist snarled. He swung out with his fist, and the cowboy sidestepped. The dentist connected with nothing but air. As his momentum pulled him forward, the Stranger brought a knee up into his ribs. He connected with a loud crack. The dentist groaned as he twisted away, hobbling down the sand dune.

The Stranger spat into the sand, satisfied.

Things were evening up a little.

The dentist skidded down the sand and worked to catch his breath. He grabbed at his side and winced. Then he shrugged out of his coat, held the sleeves in his hands, and twirled the material over itself, spinning it into a long, tight rope. He dug one foot into the sand and kicked it up, into the Stranger’s face. The Stranger turned his head, but not fast enough; the sand flew into his eyes, scratching against his corneas and rending him blind.

The dentist snaked around the cowboy and looped the coat rope around his neck from behind. The Stranger reached up and scrabbled at the coat, trying to pry it away from his throat as the dentist pulled, but his fingers were numb, and he couldn’t make purchase on the cloth. He coughed and choked as he struggled, trying to kick his way free, but the dentist was a large man, and strong, and he held the bind. Blood filled the Stranger’s head, and small, black stars crept into his eyes as he began to lose consciousness.

You failed them, whispered the voice inside his head.

On the other side of the wall, Willy and the girls watched in horror as the dentist choked the life out of the Stranger. The nightmare Tooth Fairy was still pressing his hungry hand against Cole’s mouth, and the boy had fainted from fear. “Do something!” Emma urged Willy, nudging him toward the lintel. Willy looked at her like she was insane.

“Do what?!” he demanded.

“Something!”

“I don’t know what to do!”

He looked to Etherie for help, but she stared in silent terror, shaking her head at the scene that was unfolding before them. “I don’t know, either,” she whispered hollowly. “I don’t know what to do.”

Emma paced in a panic. “We have to do something! They’re gonna die!” she wailed.

“Maybe I can help,” said a new voice behind them.

The three children spun around. The voice belonged to a boy about their age, a boy who sat astride a green and silver rug that rippled calmly as it floated several feet above the ground.

But it wasn’t just any boy.

“Cole?” Willy asked, his face twisted with disbelief. He gaped up at the familiar, thoughtful face of his friend. “What’re you–? Who’re–? How are you–?” he stammered. Finally, his voice full of frustration, he cried, “Aren’t you getting eaten by a monster right now?” Willy turned back toward the Writers Bloc to confirm that the real Cole was still being attacked by the nightmare creature. Then he turned back to face Other Cole, floating above him on the rug. “How is this happening?”

Other Cole frowned down at the small group below. He raised an eyebrow at Etherie and tilted his head toward Willy. “Is he always like this?”

Etherie was too astonished to reply.

“How are there two Coles?” Willy yelled, clamping his hands over his ears and sliding them down the sides of his face.

Emma frowned up at the boy on the floating carpet. He did look a lot like Cole…but there were things that were different, too. This new Cole wore a red cloak around his shoulders like a cape. Emma had never seen Cole wear a cape before. And this Cole held a large, wooden club in his right hand. It looked heavy, and Emma doubted that real Cole could even lift it. Both Coles’ arms were about the same size, but this new Cole seemed somehow...stronger.

Also, this new Cole had an uncomfortable-looking silver crown on his head, studded with dark green stones.

“It’s not another Cole,” Emma gasped, struggling back up to her feet. “It’s Prince Colemine!”

“From the movie?” Willy said doubtfully, at the exact same time as Etherie said, “From the book?”

“Yes!” Emma breathed in amazement. She reached up and pressed her finger against the prince’s foot. She flushed with excitement as she confirmed that the floating boy was real.

“Do we know each other?” the prince asked, cocking his head to the side in a remarkably Cole-like gesture.

“The whole world knows you!” Emma cried, jumping up and down.

“Hm. That’s...odd” Prince Colemine glanced into the Writers Bloc through the hole in what was, from inside this imagining, a high, brick garden wall. “We can discuss this more in a bit. You three stay here.”

“Where are you going?” Willy asked. “I want to go!” But Prince Colemine was already zooming toward the Bloc on his rug, soaring toward Cole and the awful Tooth Fairy nightmare.

“He’s going to save the day,” Emma said confidently.

Prince Colemine urged his rug to go faster. He leaned forward and sped toward his struggling twin. The prince knew the nightmare, or at least knew of him; he’d heard plenty of dark tales of the new Tooth Fairy in his kingdom of Perchance, and he knew what the monster was capable of. He gripped the wooden club in his hand, and as the rug sailed closer, he leaned toward the club and whispered, “Courage.” The end of the heavy wooden stick went fwoosh, and a bright green flame roared to life.

He held the torch straight out, pointing the flame at the heart of the beast. The Tooth Fairy raised his head, startled away from its dark reverie by the approaching boy on the flying carpet, and he snapped his teeth angrily. Spittle sprayed from his mouth as he snarled. He kept his hand clamped tightly over Cole’s mouth, drawing out the child’s teeth, one by one.

“Wait your tuuuuuuurn,” the Tooth Fairy hissed. He swiped his free hand at Prince Colemine, his sharp talons gleaming. The rug reacted instantly, curving up and away from the arcing claws, and the Tooth Fairy missed the prince by a fine hair. Prince Colemine held tightly to the rug with one hand and grunted as he swung the torch at the Tooth Fairy. The creature slipped backward, avoiding the fire. But the green flame was the flame of courage, and it didn’t need to touch the nightmare to do its work; it only needed to catch the monster’s darkness in its light. As the tip of the torch brushed past the creature’s chest, the light it cast melted the shadow away, dissolving it like wet cotton candy, leaving a thin, wispy trail of emptiness where before had been a solid wall of bone and ash.

The Tooth Fairy screamed. He pulled his feeding hand from Cole’s mouth and stumbled backward in his agony. Cole tumbled to the ground, still unconscious.

In his mouth were four empty sockets where his teeth had been pried from his gums.

Prince Colemine urged the rug onward and pursued the Tooth Fairy, this time holding the torch like a lance and driving it straight into the creature’s shoulder. The flames burned right through the ash, evaporating the entire arm. The nightmare screeched, and the horrible sound reverberated off the empty walls of the Writers Bloc. It swatted at the prince with its good arm, spreading its claws.

Prince Colemine shuddered as he caught sight of the Tooth Fairy’s open hand. The mouth in the center of his palm now had four teeth lining its lips.

The prince was caught off guard, and the rug dipped to avoid the nightmare’s claws, but not quite fast enough–the Tooth Fairy’s hand scraped Prince Colemine’s head, knocking the crown to the sand below. The nightmare stretched its claws toward the boy, but Prince Colemine swung the torch up and melted through the monster’s arm. It evaporated into a hissing cloud of black smoke. Cole’s four teeth dropped from the dark mist, plopping onto the prince’s rug.

“What isssssh thissssssh?” the Tooth Fairy spat in frustration. He reeled back on his clawed feet, working to keep his balance despite the lack of arms. Prince Colemine gripped the torch with both hands and urged the rug into one final dive.

“This is what happens when courage meets fear,” he said. He swung the torch down as he sped past the Tooth Fairy. The light from the fire melted his scaly head, his teeth, his caved chest, his bony spine, his thin waist, his ashen legs, and, finally, his feet with its razor-sharp claws. The nightmare disappeared into a puff of dark smoke.

“No,” gasped the dentist from across the dunes of sand. He let his coat go slack. The Stranger slumped to his knees and pitched forward onto the ground. “Nooooo!” The dentist’s nostrils flared, and his eyes burned with white-hot anger. He charged forward, lowering his head like a bull at the small boy on the flying rug. Prince Colemine blew out the green flame on the end of the torch and brought his lips back to the wood. He whispered, “Patience,” and a deep blue fire sprang to life. Its jewel-colored flames curled serenely up the torch, radiating a calm, turquoise glow.

Prince Colemine tilted the rug downward, and it dove down low to the ground, gliding just inches off the floor. The dentist charged, and the prince touched the tip of the torch to the ground. The blue flame leapt down onto the sand and spread in both directions, curving around to the left and to the right in a controlled arc. The flames rose high into the air, taller than the dentist, who skidded to a stop before the curved wall of patient blue flame. He snarled in anger and spun in place. The flames spread quickly behind him, closing him into a wide circle of soothing blue fire. “No!” he screamed again. He took his coat and beat at the flames, but the fire would not smother. It continued to burn, undaunted.

Dr. Mandrill was trapped.

The Stranger struggled to his feet and rubbed gingerly at his throat. His numb fingers felt clumsy against his skin. The skin along his neck burned at the touch, and there was a small smear of blood where the skin had been rubbed raw, but on the whole, he seemed to be okay. He would live. He set his fingers to work ripping away a piece of his sleeve. He tore it down into a long, ragged strip and tied it around his neck to catch the bleeding. Then he stumbled painfully over to where Cole lay crumpled on the ground.

Prince Colemine landed his carpet lightly next to the prostrate boy just as the Stranger approached. The cowboy eyed the new child suspiciously. “You’re tied to him, somehow,” he said warily, nodding down at Cole.

Prince Colemine furrowed his brow and looked down at his twin. “We...bear a resemblance,” he admitted.

They both crouched over Cole. The Stranger gripped him by the shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. “Cole,” he commanded. “Wake up.”

Cole’s eyes shot open, and he bolted upright, gasping like he was coming out of a nightmare. “Nooo!” he cried, flailing his arms, trying to protect his mouth. His eyes darted crazily around the Writer’s Bloc, searching for the ashen monster.

“You’re okay,” the Stranger assured him, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

“It’s gone?” Cole asked desperately. The Stranger nodded. “Did you–?”

The cowboy shook his head. He pointed at the prince. “He did.”

Cole turned his head and looked at Prince Colemine. His eyes grew wide, and he gasped…and then his body went limp as he fainted for the second time.

The Stranger looked at the prince. The prince looked at the Stranger.

“Guess we should’ve expected that,” the cowboy sighed.

Chapter 3:

In Which There Is Nothing Much to Do

Miss Twist drummed her fingers on the table. She sighed. “Anyone want to play chess?”

The IFs that still had arms held them up. Their hands, if they were present at all, were faded and see-through, and incapable of holding tangible objects.

“Right,” Miss Twist frowned. She glanced around the room. “Does anyone want to read?”

“I presume you’re being funny,” said the Servant, whose eyes had vanished, along with most of the top of the top of his head.

“Sorry,” Miss Twist replied. “I could read you a book! Or maybe tell a story?”

“What’d she say?” asked Mr. Puffles, cupping his hand around the faded spot where his ear had once been.

“Well, we have to do something! I’m bored and anxious, and that’s a terrible combination!” Miss Twist cried. She pushed her chair back and leapt to her feet, pacing the front of the room.

“Must be nice, to have legs on which to stand,” Gaia moaned sadly. Her own legs had all but vanished beneath her flowing gown.

Miss Twist sighed and sat back down. She leaned her head down on top of her desk. “It’s nap time,” she decided. “Everyone closer your eyes and dream of a scenario where the children are safe and sound.”

Chapter 4:

“Chalk One Up for Imagination”

When Cole came to, he was flat on his back, staring up at a starry sky. A ring of familiar faces peered down at him from above.

“You’re not dead!” Emma cried happily.

Cole eyed his identical twin uncertainly as he carefully pulled himself up to a seat. “No,” he said decisively, shaking his head. “No way.”

“No way what?” asked Prince Colemine, returning Cole’s suspicious gaze.

“Are you–?” He shook his head, like maybe he could knock some sense into his brain by giving it a rattle. But when he opened his eyes again, his double was still there, very present, and very real. “Are you Prince Colemine?”

“I am,” the prince said uneasily. “It seems everyone here knows who I am…but I don’t have a clue who any of you are. And I definitely don’t know why you look exactly like me.”

“Because I am you,” Cole said.

It was a good half hour before the real world children were able to adequately explain why Prince Colemine found himself confronted with an identical twin in this imaginary realm. “So tell me if I have this right,” he said, adjusting the crown on his head. “Your father wrote a story about a character based on you…and that character is me?” He tapped his finger against his chin and considered the possibility of this. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“It does?” Cole asked, surprised.

“In a way. I felt pulled here, and I didn’t know why. This is a corner of my father’s kingdom that I almost never visit. But I had a feeling that I should be here, so I came. And when I arrived, I found your friends huddled together, and saw you being attacked by that nightmare, and…well…it makes sense that something that connects us would have drawn me.”

“It seems a little strange that we got into trouble right next to your imagining, though, doesn’t it?” Cole asked. “A little…convenient?”

“Not convenient enough,” the prince retorted, nodding toward Cole’s mouth.

Cole frowned, and he winced as he prodded the empty sockets inside of his mouth with his tongue. “At least they were baby teeth,” he said sadly.

“And this guy just killed the Tooth Fairy, so there goes your money,” Willy snickered.

“Another Tooth Fairy will rise,” Prince Colemine said thoughtfully. “Hopefully one better equipped for the job.”

“Perhaps Haberdash can resume her role,” Etherie suggested.

The prince raised an eyebrow, surprised to learn that the strangers from the real world knew the name of the former Tooth Fairy. “Perhaps,” was all he said.

“What about him?” the Stranger asked, jerking his thumb back toward the Writer’s Bloc. The high, circular wall of blue flame still burned, enclosing the dentist in his fiery cell.

“The wall will hold for another turn of the glass,” Prince Colemine said.

“How long is that?” Etherie asked.

“Not as long as you might like.”

“Should we go?” Emma asked nervously.

“We can retreat to my castle and work on a new plan for you there,” offered the prince.

“We’re obliged for your help,” the Stranger said, tipping his hat, “but we’ll be seeing ourselves out.” Feeling was slowly starting to return to his hands. He reached into his pocket and produced a small white piece of chalk, a wry grin forming at the corner of his mouth.

“Is that a key?” Cole asked. “Where’d you get that?”

“Came out of the doc’s jacket in the tussle. It should take us where we need to go.”

“To the Pinch?” Emma asked.

The cowboy shook his head. “Nope. Now we can go get Polly.”

The children exchanged looks of relief. Even Willy had to admit that he’d be glad to have Polly back in the group.

“Where do you need to go?” asked Prince Colemine.

“Reaper’s Gulch,” the Stranger said. The prince frowned and rubbed his chin. “You know it?”

Prince Colemine shook his head. “I’ve never been there. But it sounds…familiar. Do you mind if I tag along?”

“Are you feeling drawn again?” Cole asked.

Prince Colemine nodded. “In a way. I feel like I should stay close to you. I’ll give you what help I can.”

Cole looked at the Stranger. “Can he come?”

“If he’s up to it,” the Stranger replied.

“I am,” the prince said, nodding once.

The Stranger looked at the two boys. The resemblance between them was more than skin-deep, that much was clear. The prince had that same hidden steel in his eye. “I believe you are,” he said.

He crouched down and brought the tip of the chalk to the dark green grass, but he couldn’t press his still-numb fingers hard enough to trace a line on the ground. “Here,” he said, handing the chalk to Cole. “You draw it.”

“Me?” Cole took the chalk, but his face took on a sickly pallor. “But…I don’t know how.”

“You don’t know how to draw?” Willy snorted.

“I mean, I don’t know how to draw a door that connects to an imaginary place,” Cole said, the tips of his ears burning with embarrassment.

“It’s no different than drawing any other door, I expect,” the Stranger said. “Just concentrate on the Gulch when you do it.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I’ve never been to the Gulch! I don’t know what it looks like, or where it is, or…or what it is. I can’t,” he insisted. “I can barely even picture my own house in my head, much less a place I’ve never seen. You all saw what happened when I tried to create an imagination from scratch. That’s how we ended up here in the first place! That’s how I got Broken!” He held the chalk out desperately to Prince Colemine, who raised his hands and backed away from it.

“I’m just a tagalong,” he insisted. “And I’m not familiar with the Gulch, either.” Cole turned and offered the chalk to Etherie, who considered it thoughtfully, but did not reach forward to take it. Instead, she offered a bit of advice.

“Maybe you don’t have to think of Reaper’s Gulch,” she said, her eyes bright. “Maybe you just need to think of Polly. That’s who we’re going to find, after all.”

“Yeah, Cole. Find Polly,” Emma urged.

Cole frowned. “But what if I send us to the wrong place?”

“Then we’ll go again,” the Stranger said.

“Unless I send us to a place we can’t get out of,” Cole replied.

But the Stranger shook his head. He looked Cole square in the eye. “I’ve got faith,” he said seriously.

The other children nodded their agreement.

Cole frowned, but he sank to his knees and leaned over the grass. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus.

Reaper’s Gulch.

Polly.

Eyes still closed, he pressed the tip of the chalk to the ground and drew a straight line. He heard the faintest sizzling sound as he did and felt a glow of heat between his fingers.

His door was coming to life.

“Polly,” he murmured to himself. “Find Polly.”

He drew a rectangle in the grass, and the crackling blue electricity filled the box with a bright, sparking glow. Then the light faded, and the grass inside the rectangle was gone, replaced by a pair of batwing saloon doors. Cole could see a desert landscape beyond the weathered, wooden slats.

He looked nervously at the Stranger. “Did I do it right?” he asked quietly.

The Stranger shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Chapter 5:

In Which We Experience Rage

Dr. Mandrill slammed his fist angrily on the sandy floor of the Writer’s Bloc. How had he allowed himself to be trapped? By a child? It was unthinkable. It was ludicrous.

He reached out his hand, toward the flames. The fire grew higher and gave off an extraordinary heat.

Mandrill didn’t know who the kid with the crown was. But he was going to make him pay.

He stomped up the sand hill and snatched his white coat off the ground. He knew his key was unlikely to work inside the Writer’s Bloc, but anything was worth a try. He plunged his hand into the right jacket pocket. He felt the smooth, curved surface of the vial that held the tooth, but no chalk. He flipped the coat over and tried the other pocket. Nothing. He patted his pants pockets frantically, but they were empty.

He closed his hands into tight, red fists and screamed into the sand.

He gripped his jacket by the sleeve and whipped it at the ground, throwing out a string of curse words were swallowed up by the flames.

But as he stood there, fuming and stomping and yelling until his voice was hoarse, the color of the flames around him began to change, very slowly. The bright blue of the fire died down to a watery blueish-yellow. He shook out his jacket, pulled it on, and stepped carefully down the sand hill, working hard to catch his breath. He approached the flames again, and this time, they didn’t rise up higher.

In fact, they started to die down.

The boy’s spell was wearing off.

Mandrill paced in front of the wall of flame, watching intently as the fire burned lower. After several long minutes, the fire was low enough that he could jump over it. He took a few steps and leapt over the flames. He hit the ground with surprising grace for a man his size, and he pushed forward toward the huge break in the wall with the night sky behind it. He burst through the opening and searched the landscape for signs of the children, but they were gone.

He spied a pair of batwing doors set into the earth, and he gritted his teeth. The cowboy had used his chalk to draw an escape.

Someone had covered the other side of the doors with a huge plank of wood, so that the far side of the batwings was completely blocked from view. Dr. Mandrill pushed down on one of the doors, but the plank was fastened tightly, probably nailed into the wall. It wouldn’t budge. He hauled off and kicked down at the door, rattling it in its hinges, but the plank support held tight. He stepped forward onto the batwings and jumped on them furiously, bringing his full weight down on the doors, but still, the support didn’t give. He spat angrily into the grass and headed back through the opening into the Writer’s Bloc. He climbed back through the hole in the wall, pushed his way through the motel room, and found his examination room still waiting for him on the other side of the door. The dental chair was still there, too, but his patient was not. Judy had been cut free, probably by one of her more courageous fellow receptionists. Her bonds hung in tatters from the sides of the chair.

Dr. Mandrill could actually feel the capillaries bursting somewhere deep behind his eyes.

He was beginning to understand the true meaning of rage.

An Interlude

The Royal lets his awareness stretch out into the recesses of the castle, down into the dungeon where the misshapen traitor of a creature sits in his cell, weeping. The Royal can feel the creature’s fear as if it were a warm blanket draped over his shoulders. And it brings him at least as much comfort.

He has not yet decided what the creature’s punishment will be. The severity will likely depend on how quickly the dentist or the Norseman captures the children and brings them to his door. His impatience grows with each passing turn of the dial.

This does not bode well for the prisoner.

The Royal redirects his concentration and sends his consciousness beyond the walls of the castle, across the Pinch, and out to the far reaches of the Boundarylands. His focus spreads here, and becomes thin, so it is difficult to concentrate. There have been rumors of uprising in the Field of the Fates, where the three crones sow the seeds of many imaginary creatures, IFs among them. He reaches for this place, this Field of the Fates, and he catches a glimpse of the youngest woman, Clotho, at work on her loom, spinning forth a thread of life. Undoubtedly, she plans to one day spin the thread that will be the Royal’s noose. Perhaps this is that thread. Perhaps not.

The Royal pulls back his thoughts from the Field of the Fates and lets his consciousness collect itself as it draws around to the far bank of the Twilight River, out to the desert of New Olympus.

He feels Odin, tracks his movements across the Pinch Rim. He is heading toward the gateway to Reaper’s Gulch. His mission is progressing.

The Royal smiles to himself. The old gods still have their uses.

He shifts direction one final time, spreading his awareness until it is as thin as paper. He cannot reach so far as the Way Station, and he is dismayed and annoyed to learn that even the Nouveau Hall, which was once on his periphery, has now faded into darkness, pushed farther out by new dreams that have sprung up between the Pinch and the Hall. But he can see far enough. He finds what he is looking for:

The dentist has returned to his office. He is alone. And he is full of anger, and fear.

The Royal draws his concentration back to himself. His power is enough that this action causes a faint ripple in the air of the Boundarylands, and innumerous imaginary creatures raise their heads and shiver at the cold breeze that whips past them.

The dentist appears determined to fail.

The Royal launches himself from his crooked throne and stalks to the dungeon steps. He feels a great need to release his anger. And he knows just the prisoner upon which to do it.

Chapter 6:

On the Surprising Nature of Bargaining Chips

Athena frowned up at the mouth of the cave, hidden in the shadow of the great seven-headed beast. She’d never cared for the Hydra. It was a vulgar thing, more monster than animal. But then, she supposed that was the point. It bristled its scaly spine, as if to confirm this opinion.

Athena sighed.

“Lost in wistful wanderings, sister?”

She turned as Apollo crested the hill. “I am many things, brother. Wistful is not one of them.”

“Don’t I know it.” He shook out his golden curls, closed his eyes, and drank in the blazing midday sun. Its heat caused shimmers to rise from the desert floor, and even the heartiest sand creatures cowed in what little shade they could find.

“Can’t you do something about the sun?” Athena said, opening the top button of her shirt and fanning the collar. “Shrink it? Cool it? Extinguish it altogether?”

“Hm. I suppose I could,” Apollo mused, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “But that would upset the natural order of things.”

“There’s nothing natural about this heat.”

“It does seem especially intense today, doesn’t it?” he asked with a smile. “Well, we’ll have to live with it. You know Zeus likes it hot. As a reminder. And if I go against his will, it’s not you who’ll spend the next millennium chained to a rock.”

“I’m sick to death of Zeus’s reminders. How long will it take for him to accept that Olympus is lost and allow us to make a real home here?” She removed her hat and fanned herself with the brim. “Or somewhere with an average yearly rainfall of more than a quarter of an inch?”

“What’s got you so sour, sister?” Apollo teased. He nodded up at the cave. “Is it our little guest?”

“Our little prisoner, you mean. And emphasis on ‘little.’ She’s just a child, Apollo. And we have her locked away like a criminal.”

“We used to do worse to younger,” the sun god reminded her. Athena rolled her eyes.

“Yes, the ‘glory days.’ How civilized we all were.”

“We didn’t have to be civilized. That’s one of the perks of being a god. You get to be an absolute monster, and they’ll still adore you.”

“They’ll fear you.”

“I find there’s little difference,” Apollo grinned.

Athena huffed and crammed her hat back onto her head. “This is exactly why our kind was replaced. People need compassion from their gods.”

“People have no idea what they need,” Apollo replied.

The Hydra adjusted itself on its perch above the cavern entrance and shook its massive body. It unfurled its gigantic wings and flapped them twice, sending two monstrous gusts of warm air blasting across the sand. The two gods simultaneously spread their arms and let the moving air rush over them. “Oh, we should train it to do that on command,” Apollo said happily.

“Checking in on our little bargaining chip?” asked a gruff voice behind them. Zeus stalked through the hardpan behind them, crackles of excitement sparking from his rough-shaven jaw. “How’s she faring this morning?”

“You’ve left her alone with no food or water in a cave full of reapers. She’s probably dead,” Athena said icily. Zeus waved her off.

“When she needs food, we’ll feed her, and you know full well the reapers are contained to their canyon. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s just a child,” Athena insisted.

“There was a time that you wouldn’t bat an eye at a little kiddie sacrificed on the bier,” said Zeus with a smirk.

“Precisely what I was saying!” said Apollo.

“The world was a less civilized place then,” said the goddess of wisdom, her voice tinged with annoyance. “We paid dearly for our barbaric ways. As you well know, Father.”

“Whet your conscience against some other stone,” Zeus grumbled.

“I’ll have no part in this,” Athena replied hotly, turning on her heel. “Whatever you do with the girl, you do without the support of New Olympus.”

“I am New Olympus,” Zeus snarled. Blue lightning crackled from his finger as he leveled it at his daughter’s back. “Whatever title you may hold, I am the one who rules.”

Athena bristled. A thousand words of venom seeped into her mind, but she was, after all, a diplomat. Rather than hurl her poisons at her father, she simply said, “She’s real, you know. Your little bargaining chip in there. You may do well to remember that. The real ones can surprise you.”

Chapter 7:

In Which a Monster is Viewed From a Distance

The Stranger shouldered his way through the batwings and stepped into the sandy desert floor of Reaper’s Gulch. The air on this side of the gateway was hot, and dry, and it felt a little like home.

He’d come across just behind an old, rickety barn on the edge of some poor prospector’s land. A clapboard house of sun-bleached boards stood off to the side, near the main roadway. The land was expansive, but sandy and barren. There were a few dozen oil drills set up out on the desert hardpan, and not a single one of them was churning.

The Stranger heard the creak of an opening door from the other direction, and he turned toward the sound, seamlessly pulling his six-shooter from its holster. He leveled the barrel at the source of the creak, then realized it was just a small boy exiting the outhouse back behind the clapboard home. The boy stopped when he saw the cowboy with the gun and threw his hands into the air. His trousers, which he hadn’t quite managed to re-fasten, fell to his knees, exposing two scrawny legs clad in a pair of dirty long Johns.

The boy hadn’t expected to see a new swinging batwing door set into the side of his pa’s barn, or a dangerous man with a drawn pistol stepping through it.

The Stranger frowned and motioned the boy away with the barrel of the gun. The boy gratefully hiked up his britches and stumbled quickly toward the house.

“Come on out,” the Stranger mumbled over his shoulder. “Coast is clear.”

The children stepped through the doors and shuffled into the bright, hot desert afternoon. “Did we make it?” Cole asked warily. “Is it Reaper’s Gulch?”

The Stranger gave a curt nod. “I believe it is.” He motioned off to his left, away from the nearby town, over toward the horizon, where a gargantuan, seven-headed creature perched atop an outcropping of stone jutting up from the sandy floor, its massive black talons clutching the pale, white rock. The stone opened up into a cave just beneath the great beast’s leathery wings, and before it stood three people, engaged in a heated discussion. “Something tells me that’s where we’ll find Polly.”

“In there?” Cole asked, his voice swallowed up by the tightness in his throat. He could hear the beast breathing, even from this great distance, and could see the sunlight reflecting off its long, curved teeth, each one the size of a grown man’s forearm.

He hoped Prince Colemine had a little more magic up his sleeve.

“I should have stayed behind,” the prince whispered, instantly snuffing out Cole’s hope.

The Stranger gritted his teeth and pulled the brim of his hat low against the blowing sand. “Best I handle this one alone,” he decided.

“Aw, come on!” Willy whined. “I want to slay a dragon!” He picked up a plank of wood from the side of the barn and slashed it through the air, just barely missing Etherie’s nose. “Whoops…”

“You’re not valiant enough,” Etherie decided casually, taking a safety step away from the Willy and his weapon. “A knight must have a drishti. But your soul is frantic.”

Cole frowned toward the many-headed creature. “Are you sure this is a good idea? It just looks...” He trailed off hopelessly, unable to put the sheer magnitude of the situation into words.

“Obscenely dangerous,” Prince Colemine finished.

“No choice,” the Stranger said. He walked over to the wall of the barn and gripped a thick cedar plank that had started to come loose. He pulled it free with a grunt, then dragged it over to the batwing doors. “Grab me that tool box,” he said, nodding at an old, wooden box lying on the ground just outside the barn. Cole trotted over and retrieved the tools, and the Stranger set to work boarding up the doorway. “You five wait there in the barn while I’m gone. I’ll come back for you when it’s over.”

“But what happens if you...? I mean, if you...?” Cole stammered. He noticed that his hands were wringing themselves, and they wouldn’t stop.

“What happens if you die?” Emma asked softly, her eyes glossy behind tears that threatened to spill out.

The cowboy snorted and spat onto the hardpan. “Best not to think about that,” he said. Then he nodded over toward the barn. “Stay outta sight.”

Chapter 8:

In Which a Plan is Formed

Polly was bored stiff. And she felt stiff, too, from sleeping against a pile of rocks the night before. It was an all-around stiff situation she’d gotten herself into, and she didn’t like it one bit. Stiffness was unbecoming of a princess.

Which is how she came to make up her mind once and for all.

Monster-dragon or no monster-dragon, she was going to make an escape.

If there was one thing she knew, it was that she was no match for the giant, multi-headed beast guarding the exit. She obviously couldn’t just go sauntering out through the mouth of the cave. And her wand was no help. It was definitely on the fritz. Despite all her chanting and wrist flicking, she couldn’t get it to change stones into Jell-o, or vines into swords, or mud into sleeping potion, or any of that. So she’d have to think of something else.

“What would a princess do?” Polly asked aloud. Her voice echoed off the wet stone walls and rebounded back to her, as if some other person were asking her opinion. And when she heard it that way, it was actually an easy question to answer.

“A princess would send her army,” she decided.

And Polly knew exactly where she could find an army.

She felt around the dark space, searching for the rope-like vine that bisected her cavernous prison.

She was going to need it.

Chapter 9:

“Ye Gads, You Gods!”

Zeus spat angrily into the dust as his daughter huffed away, heading back toward the town proper. “Your sister is a fool,” he grumbled.

“We’ve all had our turn at that table,” Apollo said jovially, recalling more than one of his own personal transgressions with no small amount of delight. “And we’ll all have a seat at it again soon enough.”

Zeus glowered at his son. He never ceased to be amazed at how little they had in common. “The Royal’s emissary, whoever he chooses to send, will arrive soon. He knows by now that we have the girl, he won’t waste any time. Be on alert. If the Royal himself comes–and he won’t, mark my word–but if he does turn out to be foolish enough to do it, take Hermes and head straightaway to the Pinch.”

“Shall we bring the god of war as well?”

“No. He stays here, to ensure our victory. Once the Royal is dead, the Pinch will be ripe for picking.”

“Who do you think the Royal will send?” Apollo asked, his eyes on the horizon.

“Some general or other, with a legion of warriors at his back, no doubt,” Zeus muttered.

“Is there any chance he’d send just one man?” Apollo asked.

Zeus scoffed. “Not hardly.” He glanced up at the towering Hydra. Two of its heads were drooping with sleep. He flicked his wrist, and a small sizzle of electricity shot out from his fingertips and burned into the sleeping heads with a soft crackle. The Hydra jerked awake and hissed at the king of the gods, but sat up straighter. Zeus turned back to his son. “Why do you ask?”

“Because there’s a man approaching now,” Apollo said, nodding over Zeus’ shoulder. “And he appears to be quite alone.”

Zeus turned and shielded his eyes against the sun. Sure enough, he saw a dust-covered cowboy ambling across the desert. The gunslinger walked alone, approaching the New Olympian cave with what Zeus regarded as a wanting amount of respect. “Who is that?” he asked, annoyed. “Surely not an emissary of the crown.” He flexed his fingers on both hands, and lightning crackled to life in his palms. His eyes filled with the same blue sparks, and his teeth flashed blue when he gritted them against the sandy desert wind. “Signal for the others. Now.”

Apollo nodded, his usual smile replaced by a rare and lopsided grimace of determination. He worked back his shoulders and lifted his chest to the burning sun. With his eyes closed, he reached toward the yellow orb in the hazy sky and stretched out his fingers, as if he could pry the sun right down and out of the heavens. Beads of sweat popped out across Apollo’s forehead and spilled down his reddening face. He struggled mightily into the air, groaning and heaving under great labor. Then, slowly, the sun itself began to bend, just on one side, stretching a piece of itself out to the east while the rest of the globe continued its slow, plodding course to the west. He pulled at the sun until it looked like a bright yellow pear tipped over on its side. This new configuration caused a portion of the sun’s light, and heat, to siphon off toward a large, circular pane of glass that stood bolted to the top of the New Olympus bell tower. The lens gathered the sun’s newly placed heat, magnified it, and beamed it directly onto a short fuse that lay nearby. The cord began to smoke, then it sprang to life with a fizzing, sparking fire that sizzled up the fuse and directly into the small, homemade cannon that sat atop the bell tower roof. The powder ignited, and the cannon shot a green flare into the sky. The glowing orb arced through the air, then exploded into a million tiny shards of green light.

By the time the dusty stranger was within shouting distance, most of the gods of Olympus had seen the signal and were hustling up the slope toward the cave. But if the sight of a gathering horde worried the cowboy, he didn’t let it show. He continued on his path, approaching the cave like a cattleman might approach his herd.

“Be ready,” Zeus muttered to the assembling gods, his very words tanging the air with lightning. “I don’t like this.”

Hephaestus planted himself near Zeus, cracking his knuckles and preparing for a fight. Ares towered above even the blacksmith god, his arms folded, a sly grin slashing his face. Hermes stood next to the god of war, looking puny by comparison, and ready to drop. Poseidon crawled his way to the mouth of the cave, where he collapsed into the cool shade of the Hydra. Hera followed him, more than happy to sit in the relative coolness of the cave. Athena was noticeably absent, but Hestia and Artemis completed the ranks, the former armed with a fire poker, the latter wielding her bow.

Behind them all, the Hydra unfurled its great wings and bared its seven sets of teeth with seven heavy snarls.

Still, the cowboy advanced, climbing up the hill and approaching the line of Greek gods.

“That’s far enough,” Zeus warned, holding up a hand that crackled with lightning. “Unless you’re eager to find yourself the target of eight different kinds of destruction.”

The cowboy slowed to a stop and flicked his head to the side, giving his neck an audible crack. “That don’t seem like gentlemanly odds,” he said.

“A man with good intentions needn’t worry about the odds,” Zeus countered.

The cowboy nodded solemnly. “That’s so,” he agreed. He took another step forward.

“Do you come from the Pinch?” Zeus asked.

The cowboy spat into the dirt. “No. I do not come from the Pinch.”

“Then what’re you doing here?” Ares growled, tensing his massive shoulders.

The cowboy looked up at the god of war, startled, as if he’d just noticed him standing there. “Just passing through,” he said.

“Pass some other way,” Zeus sneered.

The cowboy reached up to adjust his hat against the restored sun, and when he did, every one of the gods flinched. That brought a smile to the Stranger’s lips. “You talk like you’ve got something to hide back there,” he said, nodding toward the mouth of the cave.

The events that happened next occurred in extremely quick succession.

Hermes, driven beyond the point of exhaustion by his excessive lack of sleep, collapsed on the spot, falling face-first into the desert sand. Hephaestus, already tense, became startled by Hermes’s sudden tumble and sprang into action, pulling the blacksmith hammer from his belt and charging forward. Hephaestus’ sudden movement awoke the fury in the Hydra, which struck out with a deep roar from all seven of its throats, a roar that shook the very ground upon which they stood.

Hephaestus sprang forward and swung his hammer at the cowboy, who sidestepped it easily. The blacksmith god pitched forward, lost his footing in the sand, and went tumbling to the ground. The Hydra, alert at the confusion, reared up to its full height and clamored down from the top of the cave, its huge, tree-trunk legs planting powerfully onto the earth. It screamed again, then it stole forward, its seven heads snapping their bladed teeth toward the cowboy. The cowboy dropped to one knee, pulled his gun from its holster, and fired six quick shots at the oncoming beast. Each bullet found its mark; six of the Hydra’s seven heads found themselves with holes bored through their centers.

The six perforated heads tumbled to the dust, falling away from the remaining head like the peel of an overripe banana. The Hydra stumbled and fell, its momentum carrying it forward to within mere feet of the cowboy’s boots, the dead weight of its six giant necks dragging the body to a rough stop.

The cowboy calmly reloaded his six-shooter from the bandolier around his waist. “I’d like to see what you’re hiding,” he said, his voice as calm as if he’d just stretched his arms rather than handily put down a mythical monster. He snapped the cylinder back into the revolver and stepped forward to finish off the Hydra’s final head. If he was unnerved by the fact that the gods showed not the slightest concern over their fallen monster, he didn’t show it. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice that most of the Greeks were smiling cruelly now, as if anticipating some great, gleeful event.

The cowboy didn’t notice these things at all, until he put the barrel of his gun to the gnashing seventh head and prepared to squeeze the trigger.

But then, something terrible happened.

Each of the ruined heads began to roil and tear. They pulled apart from the bullet wounds in their centers, splitting like wet, rubbery logs. The six necks writhed and coiled as they began to bubble from the inside. Two large lumps appeared in each flailing throat, pushing themselves toward the ragged, open holes in the creature’s necks. The cowboy took a step back, artfully dodging the flailing appendages as they spun and lashed around him. The lumps moved slowly up the throats, growing larger and larger, until they emerged through the freshly formed holes and pushed themselves out into the light.

Each lump was a new head, slick with mucus and slightly off-color, but fully formed and already filled with rows of sharp teeth. Each head the Stranger had blasted had been replaced by two more. He hadn’t destroyed six heads; he’d created twelve. Adding the one that remained, the monstrous beast now had thirteen angry, gnashing mouths.

And they all pointed directly at the Stranger.

The cowboy shot a string of curses into the air, and then he did the one thing he hated doing most in the world.

He ran away.

He bolted across the desert floor, and the Hydra followed. Its great claws made the earth tremble with each ferocious step, and the Stranger knew there was no way he could outrun the beast. He could only hope to lead it away from the children, the ones in the barn and the one in the cave. That left two directions; out west, into the open desert, or east, toward the town of New Olympus.

It was an easy choice.

If he was going out, he was going to take as much of their home with him as he could.

The Stranger sprinted toward the clapboard buildings of the town. The Hydra’s gnashing mouths slammed into the ground behind him, spraying dirt and sand as each head drove itself into the desert floor. One of the heads got so close to the running cowboy that the spur on the back of his boot sliced the thing’s upper lip from tooth to snout. The Hydra snarled and spread its wings. It flapped them once, sending out a rush of air so powerful that it knocked the Stranger to his knees. He tumbled down the hill and skidded to a stop against a bank of low scrub. He rolled onto his back just as the Hydra dropped down on him from above. The great beast’s front legs slammed down on either side of the cowboy. He held up his pistol and drew a bead on the Hydra’s chest, where he guessed he would find the creature’s heart. He knew nothing of Hydra anatomy, but most four-legged animals were of similar construction, and a monster of that size had to be powered by a massive heart. It would make a big, if hidden, target. He squeezed the trigger.

The bullet exploded from the chamber and founds its mark in the Hydra’s chest. But the scaly skin simply absorbed the hot lead, sucking it into its flesh and reclosing behind the entry hole.

The Stranger frowned down at his gun. He sighed.

The Hydra huffed hotly and poised its thirteen heads, with their thirteen rows of jagged teeth, directly over the prostrate cowboy. The row of gods at the mouth of the cave nodded approvingly as the Hydra considered its next meal. The cowboy let his head fall back into the sand, his hat crumpling against the ground and tumbling off into the desert. He uselessly fired the rest of his slugs into the beast, just for the sake of going out fighting. And as the Hydra lowered three of its hungry jaws, he silently willed the children to run.

Chapter 10:

In Which We Witness a Frosty Reception

Zeus smirked at the many-headed creature below. The Hydra wasn’t the easiest animal to keep, but when you needed it, there was no better substitute. He never grew tired of watching the monster feed. But as the Hydra dug in on the cowboy, a loud screech filled the sky, and a black shadow passed over the group of gods at the mouth of the cave. It was the shadow of a bird.

No, not just a bird, Zeus thought, biting down on the side of his tongue. “A raven.”

The Olympians turned and followed their king’s gaze up into the sky. Sure enough, a huge, black raven circled overhead, its piercing eyes trained upon them with eerie determination.

“It’s Muninn!” Apollo cried, startled.

“Muninn?” Hestia asked, surprised. “What on earth would Muninn be doing here?”

“Scouting,” Zeus said, spitting venom into the dust. Sure enough, just down the sand where the hill sloped into the desert, a crackle of energy appeared in the air. It spread into a wide plane, a rectangular frame of sparks. As it grew, the white electricity pulled itself apart in the center, and through the crackling gateway, they could see a high wall of bright green bricks consumed, but not burned, by turquoise tongues of fire. The land on the other side of the opening portal was, unmistakably, the Pinch Rim.

But, of course, it wasn’t the wall of fire that caught Zeus’ attention. It was the being standing before it, the one who now stepped through the widening gate.

“Muninn! To me,” Odin said, his one eye gleaming at the gods of Olympus. The raven squawked down at the Greeks once more, then wheeled and came to rest on his master’s shoulder. The Norse god stroked the black bird’s feathers admiringly.

“You’ll want to show yourself back out,” Zeus called, blue sparks once again filling his eyes and sizzling at his fingertips.

“Save your posturing,” Odin shot back with a smirk. “You have no power over me.”

Zeus grimaced. “Let’s find out.” He shot a lightning bolt directly at Odin’s chest. It struck with a loud burst of energy, knocking the Norseman back a step, but no more.

Odin smiled. “You used to be stronger.”

“You used to be smarter.” Ares stepped up to Zeus’s side, unsheathing the massive sword from his back. The blade alone was the size of a schooner’s sail. It threw a long shadow over the Norse god’s gateway. Hephaeustus stepped forward, too, on Zeus’s other side, swinging his hammer and rolling his neck on his shoulders. Artemis nocked a trio of arrows in her warrior’s bow and aimed them at Odin’s heart.

“Oh, I’m smart enough,” Odin replied. He reached into the folds of his heavy coat and retrieved a small, round pellet. He crushed it between his fingers and threw the gray dust up into the air. The tiny particles arranged themselves into a depiction of an iron crown. They held this image for several seconds, then crumbled back into dust and blew away on the breeze.

“The Royal’s sigul!” Hermes said, surprised.

“You?” Zeus asked, the lightning dying in his eyes. “You’re the envoy?”

“His Highness chooses nothing but the best,” Odin said with a mocking bow.

“Since when do you act on the behest of the crown?” Ares demanded. “Any crown?”

“Since the price is right.” Muninn bristled on Odin’s shoulder, and the god stroked the bird soothingly. “Hand over the girl, and you won’t have to be the one who pays it.”

Zeus laughed. “I think you’ve got your wires crossed, old friend. The Royal and I have an accord.”

“Which you disregarded when you decided to hold the girl hostage rather than present her to the throne. The Royal would like you to correct that particular mistake.”

Zeus crossed his arms. “The Royal can come correct it himself.”

Odin whispered into Muninn’s ear in an old, long-forgotten language. The bird tilted his large head, then launched into the air and flapped back through the crackling doorway. It was still growing wider and taller, with more of the Pinch Rim wall coming into view through the opening. “I’ve been instructed to give you three chances,” Odin said. “This is the second. I’m genuinely hoping you don’t take it.”

“If the Royal wants the girl, he can claim her himself,” Zeus said, standing his ground. He heard a rumble behind him and a snarl in the air, and he knew the Hydra had finished its meal and was returning to its post. Odin was many things, but strong enough to withstand the full power of the Olympians and their Hydra was not one of them. “Tell him we request his royal presence as a token of good faith.”

Odin snorted. “You request his presence as a power play, and everyone knows it. This is the third and final offer, Greek. Will you hand over the girl, or no?”

Ares tightened his grip on his sword. Hestia blew on the tip of her iron poker, stoking the glowing red flame. Hephaestus dug into the sand, ready to launch himself forward. Hermes took a deep breath. Hera stepped forward from the mouth of the cave. Artemis drew the arrows to her shoulder. The Hydra let out a mighty scream and unfurled its wings before the cavern entrance, blocking it from sight.

The Olympians were ready for battle.

“No,” Zeus said.

A wide grin spread over Odin’s face, and his eye sparkled with mirth. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Beyond the open doorway, Muninn screeched. The bird reappeared from behind the fiery brick wall, rising on the warm air gusting up from the Rim. He soared back through the doorway and into the desert. Behind him, a rime of frost began to creep up the Pinch Rim wall, starting at the bottom and crackling its way up the burning bricks. The flames sputtered and hissed as the ice fingers spread upward and outward, extinguishing the fire and turning the green bricks a pale, minty white. The frost crept and crackled until it covered the entire wall in a thin sheet of ice.

Then an enormous blue hand appeared above the wall and gripped the top row of bricks. The hand’s forefinger alone was larger than Zeus, and the god’s eyes grew wide when he saw it. Then a second hand appeared, gripping the wall next to the first. The creature on the other side of the wall pulled himself up, and a hideous blue face rose into view. His eyes were crystal clear and hooded by a thick, white, icy brow. His nose was wide and flat, and his teeth were broad, and thick, and set into powerful jaws capable of crushing boulders.

Higher and higher, the frost-creature rose. Heavy white fur covered his torso. The hairs rippled with the strain of powerful muscles flexing beneath the skin. With a loud grunt, the beast launched himself over the wall and came to a crashing halt before the sparking gateway. The opening was still expanding, and had been since Odin’s arrival, but even so, it was scarcely large enough for the ice monster to fit through.

“A jotunn!” Hephaestus said, incredulous. “You sided with a jotunn?!”

“Well. Not just one.” Odin beckoned the monster forward, and as he lumbered through the gateway, the gods could see more hands gripping the now-frozen brick wall. A second, then a third, then a fourth monster launched himself over the wall, each one lurching slowly through the opening and falling into line behind the Norseman. They towered high above the desert floor, dwarfing even the Hydra by comparison. The hot desert sun did little to deter the ancient monstrosities of ice and snow. In fact, where they stepped, the sand crusted over with frost, and the wind that blew past them turned to an icy chill. “I brought a whole pack of jotnar.”

“Have you gone insane?” Zeus snarled.

“I believe I’ve finally come to my senses,” Odin said. “Once I recover the girl, both New and Old Olympus will be mine by rights. And you lot will be knocked off in the process.”

“You practically built your lordship on the defeat of the ice giants,” Zeus spat. “The same giants that slaughtered your own people. Now you’d throw in with them for the sake of spite?”

“The old ways are dead, Zeus. Long live the new.” He raised his hand, and Muninn burst forward with a guttural caw. The bird soared into the air, and the ice giants came to life, diving forward and grabbing at the small Olympians below.

All hell broke loose in the desert.

Artemis swiveled and fired her arrows up at the first jotunn. Two of the arrows glanced off the armor-like hide on its chest, but the third found purchase in the soft hollow of its throat. The monster roared and tore the arrow from its neck. A deluge of crystal blue ice water poured out of the wound and broke on the sands below. The torrent caught Hera in its spray, and she was instantly coated in a thick casing of ice. Hermes, who had been standing next to her, scrambled backward, and one of his knees struck the frozen goddess. She tipped over and crashed onto the hardpan, and her left arm cracked and broke loose from the rest of her frozen body.

The wounded ice monster pitched forward, grabbing at the Hydra as it fell, but the many-headed creature bobbed just out of reach. The jotunn crashed to the ground.

The three remaining creatures roared and lunged. Artemis reached for another set of arrows, but one of the jotunn swatted her bow and snapped it in half. She tossed the broken bow and gripped an arrow in her hand, stabbing at the creature’s great hand. She made contact, but the arrow broke in two. The monster lifted her easily and flung her away into the sand.

Ares boomed with full-throated laughter as he plunged forward, sword raised and fist clenched. One of the ice monsters lifted a massive palm and fired sharp boulders of ice down on the attacking god of war. Ares cleaved his way through the onslaught, sending huge chunks of hail skittering across the desert floor. He leapt up and drove his blade into the creature’s leg, just below the knee, and easily dodged the stream of freezing water that gushed out. The jotunn howled in pain and buckled down onto one knee. Ares grabbed a handful of fur and hoisted himself up onto the injured monster’s thigh. He drove his blade down again, puncturing the beast and causing a rivulet of ice water to flow down its matted fur. Ares readied himself to jump at the creature’s chest, with the point of his sword aiming at the beast’s heart, but the jotunn buckled, and Ares fell backward onto the desert floor. The blade of his sword had frozen over from contact with the frost giant, and it splintered into a dozen pieces when it hit the ground. Ares jumped up in a fury and grabbed the hunting knife from his belt, but as he sprinted back to the creature’s side, the jotunn reached down and plucked a full-grown cactus from the desert floor. He swung it down at the attacking god, catching him in the side of the head, bashing it with the sharp sting of needles. The cactus lodged itself into the god of war’s jaw. Ares screamed and tore away from it, scrabbling to the ground and plucking at the foot-long needles that protruded from his face.

Apollo gritted his teeth and set himself to work intensifying the heat of the sun, but even as the temperature climbed by twenty, thirty, even forty degrees, the sweltering heat had no effect on the jotnar. It did affect the gods, however, and they began to wilt as the sun’s rays grew in intensity. “Turn that thing off,” Zeus grumbled. Apollo relaxed, and the sun returned to its normal strength.

Zeus fired bolt after bolt of lightning at the approaching giants, but the long, jagged lines of energy froze when they struck the jotnar, fell to the ground, and smashed on the desert scrub. One of the giants lifted a huge foot and brought it smashing down toward him. Zeus rolled out of the way and laid a hand on the desert floor. He shot the sand through with a spiderweb of electricity, melting the sand into glass. The creature’s foot came down hard on the smooth surface and slipped off, throwing the beast onto its back. Hestia rushed forward and struck the jotunn with her burning poker. As soon as the hot metal made contact, its heat was extinguished, and the iron of the poker grew cold. Hestia yelped and pried her skin from the poker’s frozen grip. The jotunn grabbed her and threw her back toward New Olympus. She arced through the air and crashed down through the roof of the stables, sending straw and dust billowing out.

Hephaestus went to work smashing his hammer down on one of the fourth jotunn’s feet. He cracked through the frozen nails on three of the heavy, blue toes before the monster even noticed he was being assaulted. He rained down on Hephaestus with heavy ice shards. The smith god’s leather apron protected his torso and his legs, but a few of the freezing chunks caught him in the head and arms, leaving deep gashes and huge, black welts of dead, frozen skin.

“Hydra!” Zeus screamed. “Attack!” But in the flurry of battle, none of the Greek gods had noticed that their many-headed monster was having its own problems. Muninn flapped above its heads, swerving and diving around its gnashing teeth and pecking out the creature’s eyes, one by one, until it was completely blind. The Hydra roared and belched fire into the air, waving its mouths around like loose fire hoses, but the raven dodged them gracefully and returned to his perch on Odin’s shoulder.

The Hydra plunged forward in a panic. It trampled poor, dried up Poseidon, who could only watch helplessly from the shade of the cave, and it roasted Ares alive with an errant jet of flame. It darted into one of the jotnar and bit down blindly on the frost giant’s leg. The jotunn bellowed in pain and battered its huge fists down on the Hydra’s back, beating it down. But the thirteen sets of teeth had done their work, and the jotunn toppled to the ground, ice water spilling out from the holes in his skin.

Hermes sprang into action, sprinting in circles around the two remaining jotnar, running faster and faster until he was a solid blur spinning around the massive blue and white creatures. The desert sand was whipped into a fury. It rose high into the air and formed a gritty wall between the beasts and the gods. The cyclone rocked the jotnar and threw their balance. One crashed into the other, sending him careening out of the sandstorm and into the broken and battered Greeks. The monster flattened Apollo blindly with one foot and tripped over the prostrate form of the Hydra with the other. He slammed belly-down onto the hard desert floor, and a great, freezing gust of wind exhaled from the monster’s lungs and out of his mouth. The chilling breeze caught Artemis and Hephaestus, and they both crusted over with rime, frozen in place.

Hermes continued his frantic laps around the trapped jotunn. The creature marked the small god’s movements with his crystal blue eyes. He waited patiently in the center of the sandy cyclone, waiting for the right moment. Then, suddenly, with a speed even Odin wouldn’t have expected, the creature thrust out a hand, and Hermes slammed into it. The jotunn snatched him up, lifted him to his mouth, and swallowed him whole. But little though the messenger god was, he was still a bit more than the creature could handle. Hermes got stuck halfway down the ice monster’s throat. The jotunn clawed at his neck, trying to force the small god down, but to no avail. The jotunn turned a deeper shade of blue as the lump in his throat cut off the supply of oxygen to his lungs. His eyes bulged, and his chest heaved, and, finally, the jotunn fell down dead with a mighty crash.

Zeus picked himself up and hobbled over to the last living jotunn, the one lying on the sand. The monster struggled to stand, but Zeus shot a powerful bolt of lightning into the open wound at the jotunn’s side, and the frost giant was down for good.

Zeus turned and surveyed the damage. All of the other gods were either dead or badly injured. The jotnar were down, but so was the Hydra. Zeus was the only Olympian left standing.

He turned to Odin and set his fingers crackling with electricity. “That all you got?” he asked, spitting into the sand.

Odin smirked. “Not exactly.” He tilted his head, and the raven on his shoulder let loose a mighty cry. Almost instantly, four more pairs of giant, blue hands appeared over the frozen brick wall on the other side of the gate.

The new batch of jotnar lumbered forward into the desert.

Chapter 11:

In Which Distractions Are or Would Be Welcome

Cole sighed. “Stop that, please,” he said, for what felt like the hundredth time.

“You sound like my mom,” Willy replied, swinging the broomstick. He had found it lying on the floor in back of the barn, and he’d been using it to batter the weathered wood wall ever since.

“Your lack of respect for the world around you is extraordinary,” Etherie decided.

Prince Colemine observed them all from high up in the barn’s loft. He had climbed up there because he claimed that being higher made it easier for him to think. “It appears to be a finely-made broom handle,” he said, studying it from his perch. “What magical properties does it have?”

“I don’t think it’s magical,” said Cole. “It’s just a piece of wood.”

Prince Colemine frowned. “Why would anyone bother making something that isn’t magical?”

“Most stuff in our world isn’t magical,” Emma pointed out.

Prince Colemine frowned harder. “How do you stand it?” He stood up and crossed over to the ladder that led back down to the barn floor. He climbed down carefully, then approached the boy with the flailing broomstick. “May I see it?” he asked.

“No way! You’ll break it!”

“I will not,” the prince insisted. “I’m going to make it better.”

Willy eyed him suspiciously, but he held out the stick. “Okay, but you can’t touch it,” he warned. The prince agreed, and he cleared his throat and held out his hands. He placed one above the broomstick, and the other below it. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated hard on the wooden staff. He poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. He furrowed his brow and tilted his head. His hands began to shake, and his breathing became heavy and labored. He forced all of his will into his hands and transferred their energy into the wood. His face grew red. His cheeks became puffy. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. His hands shook harder and harder, faster and faster, and the broomstick seemed to thrum with the energy he forced through it.

The air was still as the children all held their breath. Finally, just when it looked like the prince might pass out, he gave a mighty exhale and relaxed his hands down to his sides.

“Nope,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Can’t make it magical.”

Cole sighed. As Willy went back to battering the walls, he let his thoughts wander across the desert and up the hill. He wondered if the Stranger was having any luck. He hoped the cowboy would return with Polly soon so they could leave.

Reaper’s Gulch was boring.

The Stranger was used to close calls, but this—this went beyond close.

The Hydra’s teeth had snapped so near his arm that one set shredded the fibers of his shirtsleeve. Another set gnashed in close enough to his nose that he could smell the creature’s rancid breath and see his own reflection in its gleaming fangs. A third head, down by his feet, had actually shorn away the toes of one of his boots. Only by instinctively curling in his toes did he save them from being eaten off.

But then the raven had cawed, and the Hydra had stopped. Half a second more, and the Stranger would have been food for the monster.

Timing is everything, the cowboy thought.

The raven’s cry caused the Hydra to snap all thirteen heads to attention. When the Norse god opened the gateway between the Pinch Rim and Reaper’s Gulch, the monster forgot all about its prey and stalked back toward the cavern, instinctively protecting its masters and their prisoner. The Stranger was left unguarded.

He grabbed his hat and jammed it back down on his head. While the gods were distracted, he slunk around the hill and shored himself up flat against the outside of the cave. He turned onto his belly and pulled himself up the sloping side until he could just peek over the top.

It wasn’t every day that the Stranger saw something that took his breath away. But the frost giants lumbering through the gateway did the trick.

He backed down and scouted around the far side of the cave, looking for another way in, some ancillary hole in the rock that he, or at least Polly, could squeeze through. But there was nothing but solid stone disappearing into the sandy earth.

He cursed and spat into the sand. A battle was raging in front of the cave–the gods and the frost giants were dismantling each other, giving him all the distraction he needed to sneak into the cave, but the Hydra was still blocking the entrance.

But then, movement caught his eye, and he saw the raven advance on the thirteen-headed beast. It swooped down and started attacking the creature, and the Hydra howled in pain.

The Stranger waited with his legs tensed as the raven went about its work. The Hydra’s heads were flailing wildly. Odin’s raven dove in for a final assault, and the Hydra pitched forward, trampling some of the Olympians in its path. The Stranger sprang forward, scrambling nimbly along the rock and slipping into the mouth of the cave while the melee raged on. He sank into the darkness of the shadows, out of sight.

He breathed a strong exhale. Now all he had to do was find the girl.

“Polly,” he hissed into the black maw of the earth. Then, louder, “Polly!” His voice bounced off the dripping stone walls, but aside from his own echoing call, there was no response. She must be too deep in to hear, he thought.

At least, he hoped that’s why she wasn’t answering.

As he pushed deeper into the cave, he noted with no small amount of displeasure that his skin had become clammy from the cool, damp air. He wiped his hands on his jeans and used the hem of his shirt to dry the handle of his gun. The fastest hands in the world wouldn’t help a cowboy who couldn’t hold onto his pistol.

“Polly?” he called, louder this time, now that he had made his way deeper into the cave. The noise of the scuffle outside had faded, and as he stepped over tangled vines and loose rock, all he could hear was the steady drip, drip, drip of the cavern walls. “Polly!”

A pair of deep blue lights flickered in the darkness ahead. The cowboy instinctively crouched and felt his way over to the nearest wall. He trained his eyes on the darkness before him. The eerie blue glow dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened, as if the light itself were breathing. And as he looked on, more blue lights rose from the cave floor, and soon there was an entire wall of blue lights, winking and blinking silently in the darkness like oddly-burning stars.

And then, they began to move.

They came at him all at once, a stampeding swarm of cool blue dots in the darkness. The cowboy pressed his back flat against the stone and drew his pistol. The silence was broken by a gentle hissing sound that grew steadily louder as the lights drew closer. They were almost on him now, and their hisses buzzed in his ears and ricocheted off the uneven walls. More and more blue lights were still appearing in the darkness beyond the horde, and they rushed forward as one frenzied mass. The hissing filled the Stranger’s head, and his heart began to pound as he realized that the temperature was dropping steadily, and quickly. Even in the darkness, he could see his breath pluming out in cloudy steam that caught the reflection of the approaching blue orbs.

Then the lights rushed past him, and he realized what he was seeing.

The lights were cold, glowing eyes, set into the heads of short, thin, reedy creatures that sprinted nimbly and quietly toward the mouth of the cave. He raised his gun, and it wasn’t until he did so that one of the creatures broke off from the horde and snapped its head to the side, piercing the Stranger with its gaze. The creature opened its mouth, and another blue light glowed from the recesses of its throat. The creature hissed at the cowboy.

The Stranger froze. Then, slowly, he lowered his gun and slipped it back into his holster. He raised his hands to show that they were empty. The creature, satisfied, returned to the herd and flowed along with the other creatures, heading toward the mouth of the cave.

The Stranger exhaled. He pushed himself flat against the stone wall, which felt fire-warmed now, in comparison to the freezing wind that bore the blue-light creatures forward. They streamed past him, silent but for their hissing, running with such agility that they seemed to float. There were dozens of the creatures, hundreds of them. And when the last of the herd finally flitted past, the cold air went with them, and the cowboy was left breathing in the damp, clammy cavern air once again.

The Stranger looked after the fleeing cave dwellers, astonished. He hadn’t known what to expect under the earth. But it certainly hadn’t been that.

He was so caught up in the surprise of the blue-eyed creatures that he didn’t notice the soft pink light approaching until it was just a few dozen yards away. It came from the same direction as the cave dwellers, but this light didn’t fade in and out. This one glowed steadily, and it bobbed and weaved from side to side.

It also threw a rosy glow on the beaming face of the girl who carried the plastic light-up wand.

“Polly,” the cowboy exhaled. He was so overwhelmed with relief that tears stung his eyes.

“Hello, loyal subject,” Polly said, smiling in the dim light. “How do you like my army?”

Chapter 12:

In Which Some Reap What Others Have Sown

Zeus was having a bad day. It had started out well, and full of promise. He had captured a girl, a real human girl, and that had put the Royal’s throne within reach. But now, as the sun began its descent toward the western horizon, he had no choice but to admit that the day had taken a turn.

The fact that most of his gods were dead didn’t bother him all that much. They’d find their ways back to themselves eventually. As long as the ancient gods of Olympus were studied in schools and exhibited in popular culture out in the real world, they couldn’t truly die here.

Even so. The whole thing was a real pain.

Zeus stared wearily up at the four new jotnar. “You’re a traitor to your history, Odin,” he sighed.

The Norse god scoffed. “I’m not betraying it. I’m rewriting it.” He held up a hand, and the four jotnar stopped advancing. “Any last words before we clean things up here?”

Zeus snorted. He pulled off his hat, ran his fingers through his white hair, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yeah,” he said, tugging the hat firmly back down on his head and snapping the brim, “you can–”

But the rest of the words never made it out of his throat. A sudden rustling hissed out of the mouth of the cave behind him. It was a sound that triggered instant and heart-sinking recognition.

Someone had released the reapers.

The girl, he thought. But that was impossible. She was just a child. She couldn’t possibly have set them loose.

Could she have?

The reapers blinked their fiery blue eyes against the glaring sun. They’d been trapped in the dark depths of the desert cave for more centuries than Zeus cared to count. The light was a shock to them, but it wouldn’t take them long to recover their wits.

When they did, they would be angry.

And they would be hungry.

“You’re going to wish you’d run,” he said to Odin. Though of course it was already too late for that.

The Norse god smiled. “From them?” he asked, nodding at the scrawny, ash-colored reapers. “I doubt it.” He signaled to the jotnar, and the frost monsters lumbered forward. The one nearest the cave reached down with his massive paw, a thick line of spittle dripping from his huge lips. The horde of reapers was still pouring out of the cave, and the creatures in front blinked up at the gigantic frost monster. Without even the slightest change in expression, they opened their mouths in unison and drew in a long, collective inhale. As they did, tiny bits of the jotunn turned to dust and flaked off, caught in the reapers’ inhale. These flakes of ash flew through the air and into the creatures’ open mouths. The reapers monsters continued to draw in their breath, and more and more of the jotunn turned to ash and broke off. New reapers emerged from the cave, joining their inhales to those of their brethren, and soon there were hundreds of small, gray monsters clustered around the cave, drawing in breath and sucking down the ashen flakes of the monstrous jotunn.

Watching them devour the beast was like watching a ripe dandelion being blown to pieces on the wind.

The entire consumption of the frost giant took only seconds.

The reapers grew slightly larger as they fed on the jotunn’s ash. The long-ignored hunger in their bellies was now stirred, and they turned on the other three jotnar with a terrifying ferocity. They rushed forward and sucked down the other three beasts, and Odin gaped in horror as his army flaked away into nothingness, inhaled by the reapers.

The blue-eyed creatures took the fallen Olympians next, growing larger and stronger on the ashes of the dead and injured. The husk of the Hydra turned to powder in seconds. And when there was nothing else left, they turned hungrily toward Zeus and Odin. Odin scrambled back toward the open gateway, but the reapers drew in their great breath, and the collective force pulled him back toward their ranks, his feet skidding and sliding in the sand. Then he, too, shattered into a pillar of sifting ash and was taken on the current of their breath and consumed by the reapers of the gulch.

Zeus sighed. He was glad Athena hadn’t shown up. not that he thought they would spare her. They would get her soon enough, and Aphrodite, too, and all the rest. But at least Athena wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing Zeus’ failure.

It was the last thought he had before he flaked away to dust and was devoured by the reapers.

The Stranger peeked out of the cave, gun barrel first. The reapers had ingested every single creature in sight, living or dead, and now they stood in an eerily quiet group under the hot desert sun. They had grown in the short time since they’d left the cave, that much was obvious. Each reaper had more than doubled in size, and their eyes glowed steadily brighter now, even in the blazing light of the sun. The Stranger had watched in horrified disbelief as the herd ingested the gods and monsters in a matter of seconds. To say he wasn’t eager to pass through would be a bit of an understatement. But he had to get to the other children. He had to get them out of Reaper’s Gulch before the reapers found them.

He had a few options. He could take his chances creeping around them and hope that whatever had compelled them to leave him untouched in the cave would continue to save him out there in the open. Or he could rush out with his gun blazing. If he was lucky, he could probably take out a couple dozen of them before they could draw their deadly breath, and maybe that would be enough to scare them off. Or he could walk right in, hands up, and take his chances on their mercy while Polly ran to the other children and led them out of the desert.

None of the options was particularly good.

He was still weighing the pros and cons of each when Polly marched out of the cave and into the light, hands planted firmly on her hips. “Good job, army,” she declared, nodding approvingly.

The Stranger’s heart dropped into his stomach. “No!” he yelled.

Without thinking, he ran out and stepped between the girl and the reapers to shield her from their breath. But there was no need. The reapers turned gently toward her and, as a group, fell to one knee. “Huuuuuggh,” hissed the largest reaper from the back of the pack. Guttural though it was, there was no mistaking it. It was a sound of honor.

She was, after all, the one who had lowered the vines down into their canyon, allowing them to climb up and escape.

“Huuuuuggh,” the entire assembly of reapers groaned.

Polly nodded, pleased. “Now,” she commanded, “build me a castle.”

The reapers exchanged uncomfortable glances. A few of them shrugged their bony, gray shoulders. They stood from where they knelt, brushed the sand from their knees, and shook their heads at the princess. Then they turned and marched down the hill into the town of New Olympus, where there were other gods to punish and more justice to be had.

“It’s too hot to have a kingdom here anyway,” Polly decided, watching them go. She looked up at the Stranger. “I’m glad I found you, but where’s everyone else? Are they still lost?”

The Stranger couldn’t help but smile.

An Interlude

He stands in a room that is coated with thick dust and netted with a century’s worth of cobwebs. He has not entered this chamber for a long time.

The walls are roughly-hewn stone, charred gray and sifted with black, like all the walls in the castle, but the dust gives them a ghostly pallor, and the water in the fountain in the center of the room seems to glow with the reflection.

The Royal crosses to the pool and wonders with whom he last connected through these waters. He cannot remember, but it does not matter.

It has been a very long time.

The Whispering Room is adjacent to the dungeon, and he can hear the echoes of his prisoner’s quiet sobs through the stone. He has not yet decided what to do with his guest. He has some ideas, but it’s possible the children may be venturing toward the Pinch in order to beg the Royal for the prisoner’s release. And that would change things.

The children. The Royal sours at the very thought. Their presence was a great disturbance when they were several infinities away from his seat of power. But, unfathomably, they have found doors, and through the incompetency of the Norseman, they are now about to walk through his portal and approach the Pinch Rim wall.

Now they are more than a disturbance. Now they are a threat. This is why he has unlocked the Whispering Room for the first time in eons. It is why he now reaches down into the fountain’s pool and cups its clear, sparkling water into his hands.

“I would speak with the dentist,” he whispers to the water, his voice gravelly and raw. His throat burns from the exertion it has made over these last few days. He flings his hands into the air, tossing the water. It leaps into a fine spray, and at its zenith, the collection of droplets solidifies and holds, millions of tiny, crystalline molecules forming a suspended chandelier. The Royal steps back and tilts his face up to the floating sheet of water. Light shoots through the surface, light that becomes color. There is the sound of static, and then the colors begin to take shape. The shapes arrange themselves into the form of the dentist, Dr. Mandrill, his mouth twisted into a sneer. He is in his office. The Royal has caught him searching through a file cabinet.

“Your Majesty,” the dentist says, his tone sharp.

“The children near the wall,” the Royal says coldly. “You have failed.”

“Not yet, I haven’t,” the dentist mutters.

“Your ruffian army has failed. Your fairy is destroyed. You have failed.”

On the other end of the connection, the dentist slams a fist down on the cabinet. “I didn’t count on the imaginary creature,” the dentist grumbles. “The one with the crown. He was an unexpected obstacle.”

“I have given you all the tools you need to neutralize any obstacle,” the Royal growls.

The dentist speaks again, his voice choked with frustration. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Your Majesty. But you’re wasting my time.”

“You forget your place,” the Royal says through clenched teeth. He decides that regardless of the output, the dentist will suffer for his insolence. If he actually manages to stop the children, the Royal may let him live.

“My place is here, with the children in my chair,” the dentist snaps back. “And if you’ll let me focus–” He trails off and finds what he is looking for in the back of some long-forgotten filing cabinet. He holds it up with a declaration of triumph. It is a thin, flat disk, shining and black like a real-world vinyl record. But a thin, grayish spiral twists within this black disk. The spiraling is no illusion. The Royal has seen such an object before. The gray line is actually rotating within the static black disk, spiraling off to some tiny, infinite speck in the center.

The dentist holds the disk up for the Royal to see. “Now, if I have your leave?” he says with no small amount of sarcasm. The Royal nods. The dentist opens another drawer and removes a stick of dynamite, then he turns on his heel and carries the disk and the dynamite back through the door in his wall, heading toward the black-and-white motel in the distance, where he will pass through the Writer’s Bloc, blow the wooden door to Reaper’s Gulch to bits, and pick up the trail of the children and their cowhand.

The Royal waves his hand, and the droplets of water go dark. They become heavy liquid once again, and they splash back down into the pool below. He turns his back on the fountain and crosses back to the door of the Whispering Room. The dentist will try again, and that is good. The children are close now, and the Royal has seen their faces. They are grotesque to him. They are the only real-world children he has ever seen, and they are repulsive. He will give the dentist one last chance. If he fails again, all the worse for him, and the Royal will destroy the children himself.

In the meantime, he will return to his prison cells. Roark has sharpened his master’s tools, and the Royal wishes to practice his technique on the prisoner before it’s the dentist’s turn on the table.

-

The IF series will conclude in Part VI: Broken

-

A Note From the Author

If you’re enjoying the IF series, I would greatly appreciate if you could take a few seconds to leave reviews for the books on Amazon! The more reviews a book has, the more marketing opportunities it has. Just tap here to go to the IF series page, where you can leave reviews for the books.

Also, if you like IF, you may enjoy some of my other books, especially Apocalypticon and Na Akua! I hope you’ll check them out!

About the Author

Clayton Smith is a Midwestern writer who once erroneously referred to himself as a national treasure. He has been described as “too tall to live,” which hardly seems fair.

His work includes the novels Apocalypticon, Post-Apocalypticon, Anomaly Flats, Na Akua, and Mabel Gray and the Wizard Who Swallowed the Sun; the plays Death and McCootie and The Depths; and the short story collections It Came from Anomaly Flats and Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies. Some of his short stories have appeared in such publications as Canyon Voices, Write City Magazine, and Dumb White Husband.

Clayton would like very much to hear from you. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @claytonsaurus.