Artie, bathed in moonlight, appeared in his upstairs bedroom, kneeling on his bed. He fell to his side in a fit of dizziness. Moongating all over the place was beginning to take a toll.
Slowly his eyes adjusted and his head steadied. Downy white feathers fell around him like he’d just been in a massive pillow fight.
Excalibur, next to the stone, impaled his pillow, the mattress, and the bed frame.
Artie stood and withdrew his sword, showering even more feathers into the room. He looked around. Everything was as he’d left it. No one had disturbed his old, private kingdom.
His mind cleared and zoomed to its destination.
Qwon.
Artie jetted out of the room and down the stairs and skidded into the living room. Lance sat bolt upright in Kynder’s favorite chair, exclaiming, “Whoa, Artie—whassup?”
Kynder came scurrying in from the kitchen. He wore his wellies and a red-and-white striped kitchen apron. “Arthur!” Kynder yelled, a broad smile on his face. “You’re back!”
“Hey, Kynder! Hey, Lance! Uh, yeah, kinda. But I’ve got to go. Sorry.”
“But you just got here,” Kynder said, sounding confused.
“I mean I’ve got to go find Qwon. Have you seen her?”
“No, Arthur, I haven’t. Can’t you stay for a bit? I mean, how’s it going?”
“Not now, Kynder. Really, I need to see Qwon. Lance—I might need your help. Want to come? You might need your bow.”
“You got it!” Lance quickly moved to the foyer, where his bow and quiver were propped against the wall. He grabbed his preposterous Robin Hood hat from a peg on the wall and slid on his aviator sunglasses. He looked every bit as silly as the day they’d seen him in the woods behind Serpent Mound.
Kynder followed them with a look of helpless concern on his face. “Where’s Kay? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, Dad,” Artie lied, his heart sinking. “She’s with Merlin and Tom.”
“Oh,” Kynder said, obviously disappointed that Kay wasn’t there. “Can’t you stay for dinner, at least? I just made—”
“I’m sorry, Dad. Believe me, there’s nothing I’d rather do than stay here with you,” which was true. Artie really missed Kynder, and he felt awful that he didn’t have time to tell him about everything, especially about Kay. He forced himself to look at Lance and said, “C’mon, let’s go.”
Lance said, “Lead the way.”
Artie threw open the front door and bolted, Lance jogging like the professional soldier he was right behind him. They jumped into Lance’s cab and took off.
Qwon’s house was about three minutes away.
“Right on Morewood to Ellsworth,” Artie said.
“Got it. So what’s up with Qwon?”
“We think she might be in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Otherworld trouble.” They came to a stop. “Here’s Ellsworth. Right again.”
“Roger that. What kind of stuff you seeing over there?”
“Dragons, huge pigs, an elf, saber-toothed tigers, knights, a dude with the body of a man and the head of a wolf, that kind of thing.”
“Far out.”
“Yeah, totally. Go left here, on Colonial. That’s hers—the white one on the right.”
They screeched to a stop in front of Qwon’s house, jumped out, and ran across the driveway.
A couple of teenage skaters in tight jeans and knit hats ground to a halt. One punched the other on the arm and said, “Get a load of these two losers.”
And to a couple of pseudohipster skaters, that was exactly what Artie and Lance must have looked like. Their weapons were so out of place, and their clothing was such an odd mix of old and new, that they must have looked like a couple of nerdy Renaissance-fair castaways.
Artie and Lance ran to the front door and rang the bell. Ding-dong. Artie was in a desperate rush but he refused to barge in.
Lance drew an arrow and nocked it to the bowstring.
Artie rang again.
Ding-dong.
And again.
Ding-dong.
“I’m coming!” a voice shouted from inside. The door opened as Qwon’s mother said, “Oh, hello, Artie. Qwon’s up in her—My, my. What’s all this?”
Mrs. Onakea was about five feet tall, had a neat head of black bobbed hair, and wore sea-green cat’s-eye glasses.
Artie shifted nervously from foot to foot and tried to answer. “This? Oh, uh, well, um…”
“Ma’am, Victor Lance. Pleasure to meet you. Artie and I are members of a kind of medieval fan club. We were going to a meet-up and thought we’d see if Qwon wanted to join us.”
“Uh, y-yeah,” Artie stammered. “It’s pretty cool. None of this stuff is real, Mrs. Onakea. Totally plastic.”
“I see.” Mrs. Onakea said slowly.
“Please, Mrs. Onakea, can we come in?” Artie pleaded. “We won’t stay long, I promise.”
“Of course, Artie. Come in.” Mrs. Onakea stepped aside and said, “Qwonnie’s upstairs. Knock first. Can I interest you in some iced tea, Mr. Lance?”
“I’d love some, thanks,” Lance said, nodding curtly at Artie.
Artie nodded back. He bounded up the stairs and hustled down the hall. There were several doors but it was obvious which room was Qwon’s—her door was plastered with posters of pop icons.
Artie took a breath. He raised his arm and knocked.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
He jiggled the doorknob and, finding it locked, knocked one more time.
“Who is it?” Qwon asked in a small, shaky voice.
“It’s Artie. Can you open the door?”
“Artie! No! Get out—” Her voice was muffled as if by a pillow.
Artie yanked out Excalibur and shredded the door to pieces. What he saw on the other side didn’t make him feel very good.
Qwon stood at the far end of her room, restrained and gagged from behind by a humanoid figure covered in soft, bright-green moss. Rising from the tuft on the top of its head were two short and crooked stag’s horns—one red, one blue.
Artie looked into Qwon’s eyes, and they showed just how scared she was. But they also showed something else. It was almost like she was trying to tell him something.
Artie moved into the room and raised Excalibur. Its blade was blackish, and little dark sparks started falling from it.
Artie glanced quickly at the glass pommel of his sword. It swirled with the darkest black he’d ever seen. Of course! Excalibur could make a room totally dark if he asked it to!
Artie demanded, “Who sent you?”
The Mossman said nothing.
“Let her go!” the young king demanded.
The Mossman shook its head.
Artie punched with Excalibur and ordered, “Darkness!”
Blackness came in waves from Excalibur’s blood channel and covered everything. It was like a giant octopus had joined the fun and completely inked out Qwon’s room.
At this moment Lance and Mrs. Onakea, wondering what on earth was happening upstairs, arrived at the top of the landing. When Mrs. Onakea saw the void pulsating from Qwon’s destroyed bedroom door, she instantly fainted. Lance caught her and laid her down gently. Then he unshouldered his bow, strung an arrow, and without hesitating stepped into the inky air.
Lance felt liked he’d walked into an abyss. With no frame of reference, he didn’t know up from down or left from right. Seeking some stability, he dropped to a knee. He pulled the bowstring hard, making it ready to fire.
Artie had also been overwhelmed by the dark, but, lucky for him, Excalibur hooked him up with some sweet night vision.
Artie easily saw Qwon and her captor. Confused, the Mossman had moved toward the bathroom door. He’d dropped Qwon to the ground and was kneeling on the small of her back. The Mossman fumbled with a bag at his waist. Artie considered throwing Excalibur at him, but then he noticed Lance.
Artie glanced over his shoulder. Lance was pointed in the wrong direction. “Three o’clock!” Artie ordered.
Without speaking, the cab driver swiveled exactly ninety degrees.
“Light the way!” Artie commanded Excalibur.
No sooner had Lance turned than a narrow tunnel opened in his field of vision. Lance didn’t pretend to understand it, but at the end of the tunnel was the least menacing thing he could imagine: a green clump of thick moss.
“Fire!” Artie shouted.
Lance did. The arrow sprang from the string with a vibrant twang.
Lance strung another arrow but the wake of his first shot drew the blackness in front of him once more.
Artie had marked the Mossman’s head to receive Lance’s volley, but the Mossman was quick. It may have been a sixth sense or just luck, but for whatever reason, as Lance let the string slip from his fingertips, the Mossman stood, and instead of impaling his head, the arrow struck him with a sickening thump just above his hip. It passed through him and clanged off something hard in Qwon’s bathroom before clattering to the floor.
The Mossman screamed in pain. Its scream sounded familiar to Artie, but in the heat of everything he couldn’t place it.
The Mossman had thrown something small on the floor and a gate began to open. It wasn’t like Artie’s moongate—this gate arced open like one of those purple-and-pink electrical plasma lamps at a science fair. The Mossman dragged Qwon through it, and in an instant they were gone.
The charged air smelled like a lightning strike. Artie fell to his knees.
Excalibur drew the darkness from the room. Light from the late-summer Pennsylvania evening poured through Qwon’s windows. The birds outside her house were whipped into a frenzy and wouldn’t shut up.
Lance exhaled. “I didn’t miss, did I?”
“No,” Artie sighed. “It moved at the last minute, though.”
Lance stood, walked to Artie, and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Artie.”
Artie turned to his friend with steely eyes. “I will save her, Lance. I don’t care how long it takes, I most definitely will save her.”