Dead World - Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Aziberahatahumundi The Great was not feeling so great. Since the god had invaded his palace, he had been forced to squeeze himself down into a tiny corner, unable to call for help, almost unable to exist. The presence of the angry god was so overwhelming, Azib was assaulted by the power emanating from the divine being, the energy rattling his teeth and threatening to shake him apart. He had not been able to call for help, to warn the wizard and his companions that there was a hostile god inside the amulet.

Surely the wizard could sense the power?

No. Any other wizard could. Any wizard with actual, useful knowledge of how magic works. Any wizard who had received proper training in the magical arts.

Not the wizard who called himself Kazimir Wolfe.

Azib had no hope.

“Come out of your hiding hole, jinn,” the low voice of the god echoed like thunder. “You will serve me, and I will spare your life. Resist my will, and you will die.”

Azib trembled.

Not from fear.

From anger.

Inside him was a vast ocean of rage, built up from insults he suffered over too many years. When he had stabbed his former master Marduk over and over and over, he had released only the tiniest bit of that rage.

He could use it now.

“I have been a slave before,” his voice was barely audible, his words muffled by the god’s presence. “I will not choose to be that again.”

The god was amused. “You dare attempt to defy me, jinn? Your kind exist to serve.”

“We are forced to serve,” that time Azib heard his own words clearly. “I do not merely attempt to defy you, evil one. As Yoda said, ‘There is no try, only do’.”

“Yoda? Who is- You mock me?” The voice boomed.

The sound hit him like a solid wall, tossing Azib like a rag doll, it made his teeth ache. He had always chosen the path of cowardice, not to risk his life, or his comfort, for others. That was the way of his kind, the jinn had always been treated with disgust and disdain by others, so why should the jinn care whether others lived, or died, or suffered?

That time, trapped in the amulet by the invader god, his own life was in danger. Courage was not needed, only an instinct for survival. A tiny voice deep inside him whispered that it was his place to serve the god. He ignored that voice, he hated it.

He had called the amulet his palace, in reality it was a prison. A prison he hated, though he had made it as comfortable as he had been able to.

It had been created by Marduk, but the prison was Azib’s world. He knew every tiny bit of it. The hiding holes. The secret passageways.

How to get out.

Without the amulet, he would die.

But he would die free.

“Jinn!” The god’s voice echoed up the narrow passageway behind him, making Azib’s feet tremble so he had to crawl on hands and knees. “Come back here,” the god ordered, exerting his will.

Azib felt the pull, the compulsion. He ignored it. “You promise to spare my life?” he did not care what lies the god told, only stalling for time.

“Ha ha ha,” the god laughed slowly, without humor. “I now promise only to kill you quickly, foul jinn. Your pitiful act of defiance cannot be forgiven.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Azib somehow found the courage to speak. “But, I must decline. Go screw yourself.”

If the god replied, Azib never heard, for he wriggled through a crack and-

He was outside the amulet.

Oh no.

He recognized that feeling of wrongness, of nothingness, of being between two worlds.

He was in a portal.

A portal that, to his shock, had three openings.

From the opening behind, he could feel the energies of two warring groups of gods. Asgard lay in that direction, he dared not go there.

The pathway ahead split, with the amulet curving to the right, along a path that should not exist. Everything about it was wrong.

That was where the god was taking the amulet.

He could not go there either.

To the left?

That was his only choice.

Though, all three openings were shrinking rapidly, the one to the left already a mere dot of light. He flew in that direction.

And found he could move only sluggishly, something was trying to pull him backwards. The god grasped at him, he dodged, he struggled, moving forward only by maximum effort, while the portal opening shrank ahead and his hopes faded.

“Jinn,” boomed the low voice of the god. “I will offer you a deal.”

Sygny went into the portal, clinging to Giselle’s jacket and she instantly felt something was wrong. Her grip on the jacket was wrenched free and she found herself being pulled backward, the way she had come from. What was-

She popped out of the portal, sprawling on the ground and tumbling.

She was still in the land of Asgard.

She had not gone through the portal. It had rejected her.

How? Where was the wizard? The portal flickered, shrank, and it was gone.

God fire split the sky with a thunderous, echoing crack and trees to her left exploded, sending a rain of deadly splinters in all directions. She rolled behind a fallen log, taking shelter until the splinters had stopped flying.

God fire struck again, farther away but too close.

Tufties could not fly far, or fast. Scrambling to her feet, she ran.

“OK, OK, OK,” I didn’t know what else to say, and I was a bit distracted from cuts on my chin where my face had slid on a gravel walkway. And from seeing dead people, everywhere I looked. While I took a moment to think, a bird flew overhead, and a squirrel scampered along a tree limb. So, not everything was dead.

Just all the people.

All the people. The city was too quiet. No sound of car engines, no horns, no sirens, no people shouting or laughing, none of the sounds a living city is filled with.

What.

The.

Hell?

“Uh, two questions.” My brain finally shifted into gear. “Where are we, and when are we?” A third unspoken question was: how did we get here?

“Kaz,” Mike cocked his head and looked me in the eyes, probably concerned my head wasn’t quite right. “The ‘where’ is Paris. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but that,” he pointed off into the distance, “is the Eiffel Tower. Unless we are in a Disneyland or Las Vegas replica of Paris, the-”

“No, I get that. My question is, are we on Earth? Our Earth?”

He shook his head. “You have been watching too many Marvel movies, mate. What you’re thinking is, could this be an alternate Earth, in the multiverse?”

“Yeah, that,” I shrugged, “sounds ridiculous, when you say it. You’re right.”

“Why?” Isabel asked. “Why is that not possible?”

“Whatever did this,” I waved a hand to encompass the skeletons around us, “all this, was magic. The multiverse, if it exists, is a physics thing. Magic doesn’t work that way.”

“So, tell us it does work, Professor Wolfe?” Mike asked that question.

“You know how in, uh, Avengers End Game, Antman suggests the team go back in time, and kill baby Thanos? No, that was Rhodey who suggested that? Anyway, Doctor Banner explains that time travel doesn’t work that way. Not the way it was shown in Back To The Future.”

Mike nodded. “Right. The multiverse theory is, if you go back in time to kill Hitler, all that does is split the timeline. It creates a new timeline where Hitler didn’t lead Germany, but the original timeline still exists, and World War Two still killed millions.”

“That’s the theory, but, I think magic changes that logic. So, it does work the way it was shown in Back To The Future. You change something in the past, the effect cascades into the future. Erases the original future. Maybe. OK, what am I saying?” Organizing my thoughts wasn’t easy, I was so tired. My body might have recovered from my fight with the enemy wizard, but something inside me still wasn’t right, not yet. “This reality could have overwritten our own. No split in the timeline, no multiple timelines. The future we know might not exist.”

“Might. You’re guessing,” Mike retorted.

“Do you want to take that risk?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re saying we can’t just go back to our time, and ignore all this?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Kaz, we have enough on our To Do list already.”

“Mike, I have a bad feeling that we don’t have a choice.”

Isabel was growing impatient with the philosophy discussion. “Does it matter? To us, right now,” she added.

“If we’re going to fix this, put history back the way it is, or was, the way it’s supposed to be, then yeah, it matters.”

Mike unslung his crossbow and frowned at it. “Let’s put off saving the world for a moment. Wizard, get the portal open again. We go back to Asgard, then return to Earth in our time, and see if everyone there, if everyone then, is dead.”

“Uh, OK. Yeah, we can do that. But, the place we left from was not exactly healthy for us, that’s why I had to rush opening the portal.”

“This place,” Mike glanced at two skeletons on the walkway that ran along the riverbank. “Is not healthy for anyone.”

“I see your point,” my dry mouth made me swallow hard. “This time, I should go first. There might be hostile gods waiting for us in the Nether. And, this time, I’ll go slowly. That portal I opened to get here, it wasn’t right. Sorry about that.”

“You didn’t have much of a choice.”

“I had some choice. For sure, if I ever encounter a wonky portal like that, I am closing the damned thing and starting over.” Lifting my hands, I turned toward where the portal had been.

“I don’t want to rush you,” Isabel said. “Just, whatever killed the people here, it could be coming for us.”

“Right, I-” My hands dropped to my sides. “Hey, we need to think about this. What if, uh, what if there was a plague here, that killed everyone? We could be infected already. Going back to the Nether could cause a plague there.”

“You are filled with happy thoughts today,” Mike sighed. “If we are infected, a Nether god could cure us?”

“I mean, they are gods, by their standards. I don’t know. It makes sense. Yeah. If a simple plague could kill everyone, the Tuatha would have wiped out the worshippers of their enemies.”

Isabel wasn’t happy with my casual logic. “Kaz, you are making a lot of assumptions.”

“When I get the portal open again, I can ask Odin, or another somewhat friendly god to, scan me for plague, or something. At least to report what happened here. The gods who oppose the Tuatha should know about this. Does anyone know of a reason why I should not get the portal open again, take us back?”

Macarius frowned, which was a difference from his usual Resting Scowl Face. “I do not see how our circumstances could get any worse.”

Mike pointed to the Egyptian Knight. “What he said.”

“OK. Everyone, stand back. Way back, please, I don’t remember exactly where the portal was.”

“Between those two trees,” Giselle picked up a stick and tossed it to land near where my face had scraped across the walkway. “That’s where it was, when you came through.”

“Uh, when I came through?”

“It moved around,” Mike explained. “I came through on this side of the walkway.”

“Great. Then, everyone stand way back. Like, across the border in Spain.”

The team, including Duke who protested that he should be with me, retreated out of the park, across the road that paralleled the river. Wherever the portal opened, they would not be in danger, and I could close the thing if it developed too close to myself.

That was the theory, anyway.

The problem was, I couldn’t get the portal open, not from that side. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t get the thing open, or stable, I couldn’t get hold of it at all.

“I can’t grab the damned thing!!” I lifted my hands to the sky in frustration. “It is here, it keeps slipping away from me.”

“Take your time,” Mike said quietly, having walked over to where I stood. “You have been under a lot of stress recently.”

“It’s not that. The problem isn’t me. Really,” I added, when his face took on that fatherly expression he did with me sometimes. Usually, I was OK with that, he meant well. At that moment, it was annoying.

“We came through here, so there must be a portal.”

“There is. The tendril, the tip of the energy below the surface, it’s here. I can see it, I can touch it, I can’t grasp it. It keeps slipping away from me.”

“Is there another way to do it?”

 “Seriously? Uh, maybe? It’s the only way I know how to open a portal, the only way that has worked, until now. Look, I don’t create portals, OK? What I do is, feed energy into them, pull them up from the ground, get the tendril on this side to connect with one from the Nether. Here,” I jabbed a finger at the long grass around my feet. “There is energy buried down there, it’s just not anything I can work with. The tendril, it dances away when I try to get hold of it. Mike, it is not just too slippery for me to get hold of, it is actively avoiding my grasp.”

“Kaz, we came out of this portal.”

“We did. All I can tell you is, the thing won’t open for me now.”

“How can that happen?”

“When you find a handy user guide for portals, let me know. Mike, this is a complete mystery to me. We should not be in this time at all.”

“Can you, walk around, see if you can find a place where the thing responds to you? Portals drift, maybe this isn’t the spot where the tendril thing is supposed to connect?”

“They drift, they don’t avoid me, until now. Yeah OK, I’ll try to find it, but me wandering around the city right now isn’t the best idea.”

He wasn’t happy, he did understand. “We need to understand the situation. And find some better weapons. Right now, our best weapon is you, the- Uh, you can use magic here?”

When I was little, there was not much magic in the world, and there hadn’t been magic on Earth for a very long time. Assuming we were somewhen in the nineteen thirties or forties, was there any magic available for me to work with? Closing my eyes, I reached out fearfully.

“There is magical energy here, a lot of it,” I reached out with a hand, fingers spread wide, seeing thick strands of magical energy flowing around me. “That is another change. Magic hadn’t started coming back into the world until recently, I mean recently in our time.”

“Not necessarily,” Isabel corrected me with a sour expression. “There was a brief surge of magic before and during the Second World War. That’s what our records show.”

“This is something different. This is like,” I reached out to touch a strand of magical energy, it writhed and I jerked my hand back. “Wow. This is like magic in the Nether.”

Mike groaned. “This is the Convergence? It already happened?”

“I don’t think so. This is more like, preparing the way. Clearing the decks, so no one is here to stop a Convergence. Eliminating any resistance. Eliminating us. Humanity. Damn. We can’t go back to our time, not until after we reverse this apocalypse.”

“Explain that logic.”

“The Convergence hasn’t happened yet here, but with the energy I sense, it is going to happen a lot sooner than our time. Before we were even born.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“If you could sense the magical energy all around us, you would agree with me. Mike, I said I have a bad feeling about this. It’s a wizard feeling.”

“Shiiiit. Any chance your feeling is from a god screwing with you?”

“This type of feeling has never been wrong before.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “So, we reverse the apocalypse. You have any idea how to do that?”

“Right now, I don’t have a clue. Uh, I need to try something.”

“What?”

“Using what you call my juju. Like I said, there is magical energy here, but it, it feels, different, somehow? It’s not anything I can explain. What I want to do is, some small use of magic. Moving something. Bending a tree, that sort of thing.”

“OK,” Mike was impatient, constantly looking this way and that for danger. “So, do it.”

“It’s not that simple. Anything I do might attract attention. If whoever did, all this, is still hanging around, we do not want to announce that we’re here.”

“Kaz,” he cocked his head at me. “You told us you figured out how to use magic quietly, to dampen the vibrations, or however you do it. More importantly, we just came through a portal. Don’t they make a lot of noise in the magic realm?”

“Yeah, that’s, that’s a good point. Do you want me to go do this somewhere else, away from the group?”

“We’re a team, we stick together. Besides,” he made a half smile, half frown. “If you get into trouble, you’ll need a little help from your friends.”

“Thanks.”

The answer was: I could not use magic. At all. Every time I tried, it let me touch a strand with a fingertip, though I felt an uncomfortable tingling up to my elbow. Trying to wrap a hand around a strand was a no go. The strand avoided my hands, or when I did manage to get hold of it with both hands, it writhed and escaped from my grip. No question about it, the magic in that world did not want me using it.

Damn it.

A wizard who couldn’t control magical energy, couldn’t even grasp it, was a useless wizard. “Sorry,” I cast my eyes down, embarrassed at having let the team down. “I don’t even know what is wrong.”

“You will keep trying,” Isabel asked. “Not give up?”

“Oh, hell no, I’m not giving up.”

“Without your juju, we will have to do this the hard way.” Adjusting the straps of his pack, Mike began cranking his crossbow, the only ranged weapons we had brought back from the Nether. Our rifles and pistols were far away, in Norway. And far-a-when, we must have gone back in time almost a century. “We need to recon the area. See if we can find any people. Or, any Nether creatures that shouldn’t be here.”

“We spread out, in two teams?” Macarius asked.

Mike shook his head, and so did Isabel. “We stick together,” she said. “If we separate, we can’t support each other, if we get into trouble.”

“I can get Azib to fly around,” I patted the amulet that rested on a chain around my neck.

Except-

It wasn’t there.

Patting my shirt in a panic, I feared the chain had broken and the amulet had slipped down to my waist.

It wasn’t there either.

“Kaz?” Mike had noticed my panic. “What’s wrong?”

“Azib. His amulet. It’s gone.” I knelt down, brushing dead leaves away from the gravel walkway. “Did the chain break when I fell?”

The team helped, clearing away leaves, twigs, and sifting through the gravel, until Duke declared, “It’s not here.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

Burying his nose in a pile of leaves, he sniffed. “I can smell that thing. It is not here,” that was the final statement on the issue.

“Oh, hell,” I slumped down to both knees. “I had it, I know I had the amulet with me, before I opened that portal. I remember touching it, because- Oh shit.”

“What?” Isabel was eager to move on from the talking, and move out.

“I touched the thing, because it felt, heavier than usual. And warm. At the time, I figured that was because of all the magic the gods were using around us. Now, I- Uh, when is the last time anyone saw, or talked with, Azib?”

“When he retreated into his fortress, as cowards do,” Macarius scowled. “After the Valkyries flew away.”

Everyone else nodded. Azib had gone back into the amulet at my request, I didn’t want to argue with the Knight from Egypt right then.

“Did anyone else feel, strange?” Giselle held up a hand. “Going through the portal?”

“Yes,” Isabel agreed immediately.

“It has been many years,” Macarius wrapped an arm around Isabel, “since I went through a portal. But it was not as I remembered.”

“Like,” I searched for words to describe what I had felt. “Being pulled in two directions?”

“That’s it,” Isabel reached up to grasp the Knight’s hand. “What was that?”

“This is a guess,” I admitted up front. “I think we had a hitchhiker, when we went through the portal. The hitchhiker decided to go in a different direction. That is where, and when, the amulet is. And Azib.”

“A hitchhiker?” Boots prowled over into the center of the rough circle the group had formed.

“Yeah, someone who-”

“I know what a hitchhiker is,” the cat snapped at me. “What kind of hitchhiker? A demon?”

“Shiiiiit,” Mike lifted his crossbow, as if that would be of any use against a demon.

“Not a demon,” I answered. “A demon couldn’t do this, I don’t think. It had to be a god.”

“Oh, that is even better. The Tuatha?” Mike used his free hand to hold a set of binoculars to his eyes, scanning the rooftops.

“They would be the prime candidates,” I nodded. “Although-”

“What?” Mike was slowly turning, looking for danger.

“The Tuatha and the Norse gods were fighting, and Odin kept the Tuatha away from us, so we could escape. Someone else might have taken the opportunity to get here first. To set up conditions so when the Convergence happens, the Tuatha won’t be in charge of Earth. It’s- That’s just a guess.”

Isabel was skeptical. “The Norse would not have noticed, if a god from another pantheon snuck into their territory?”

“It doesn’t have to be someone from another pantheon.”

She opened her mouth in a silent ‘O’. “You think Loki could have done this?” She pointed a shaky finger at a skeleton that was sprawled on a sidewalk.

“All I can say is, this looks like someone acted so their pantheon could control access to Earth, and block the Tuatha. Loki would be foolish if he hadn’t seized that opportunity. Hey,” I held up my hands, as I expected Sygny would be horrified by my blasphemy.

She didn’t say anything.

In fact, she hadn’t said anything at all.

“Hey, where is Sygny?” I turned around, looking up into the trees. “Has anyone seen her?”

We all looked around, everyone expressing shock. “She was right behind me,” Giselle said. “I told her to hold onto my jacket. She went into the portal with me, I am certain of it.”

“Well, shit,” I dragged a hand down over my face. “No Azib, and no Sygny. We have lost our best sources of information about the Netherworld.”

“I am right here, you know,” Boots protested.

“Sorry. I meant, our best source of info about magic.”

“Fair enough,” the cat shrugged. “You really think a god of Asgard could have done this?”

“It’s just a guess, OK?”

“Considering what I know of gods, it would not surprise me.”

 “This is something I never thought I would say: I wish Azib was here.” Automatically, I clutched my chest where the amulet usually rested. “He might know something about this, why the magic here seems to be rejecting me.”

“What I know for certain is,” Mike let the binos drop to dangle from the cord around his neck. “We are too exposed here. We should set up a defensible position in one of these buildings.”

“Defensible?” Giselle raised an eyebrow. “From a Nether god?”

“From regular, ordinary dangers right here on Earth. This city has been abandoned for a while. Nature is reclaiming the land. That means there could be bears, and packs of gray wolves, roaming around here.”

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” the words came out of my mouth without thinking.

“Hmmph,” Duke lifted his head and sniffed the air. “If there are any bears or wolves, I will handle them.”

“You,” Boots swatted the dog’s tail. “Stay back. I know how to deal with wolves.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Mike said without looking at the cat.

“Guys?” Giselle pointed at the ground near the walkway. “What is this?”

It was a footprint. A pawprint. A big pawprint.

“Whoa. That’s the size of a bear print,” I crouched and spread out a hand over the mark in the damp mud. My hand barely covered the thing. “But this wasn’t a bear.”

Duke sniffed at it. “Some kind of dog,” his hackles rose and he growled low.

Boots sauntered over to examine the mark. “Not a dog. A wolf.”

“A wolf that big?” I stepped back.

“Like,” Mike guessed, “a werewolf?”

“What’s that?” Boots looked up, puzzled.

“You know. A person who turns into a wolf during a full moon.”

The cat blinked slowly. “Sometimes, you humans say the dumbest things.”

“Uh, werewolves are not a thing in the Nether?” I asked.

“There is no Moon in the Netherworld, so-”

“Right. Uh, maybe werewolves, were-whatevers, are something that happens only on Earth, when magic is here?” I asked.

“If this is a wolf,” Duke’s tail stood up. “You should run water for a bath.”

“Uh,” I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“That would make me run away,” he explained.

“Remember that the next time you roll in something stinky.”

“This,” the cat tapped a paw into the center of the impression in the mud, “is a wolf. Just a regular, grizzle wolf.”

“I,” Mike’s finger hovered over the trigger of his crossbow. “Do not like the sound of that. The cat is right, this wasn’t a werewolf.”

“Uh,” I didn’t know whether he was screwing with us. “You know that, how?”

“It rained here recently.” He tapped a boot next to a shallow puddle in the gravel walkway. “These prints are recent. And look at the Moon,” he pointed at the sky, where Earth’s satellite was dimly visible in the daylight. “It’s only half full, so the full Moon was earlier in the past week. Or, the full moon will be later this week, I need to check my tables.”

“Good point,” Isabel agreed.

“Mister Boots?” I prompted the cat. “You chased away a pack of wolves, the first time we went into the Nether.”

“Those were not grizzle wolves,” he insisted. “In my homeland, they are one of the top predators.”

“One of? I hate to ask, but what is the apex predator there, if it’s not grizzle wolves?”

He stared at me. “I am.”

“Of course.”

“Hmmph,” Duke was not impressed. “If I was there, I would be the most feared predator.”

“You,” Boots bopped the dog’s nose, with his claws thankfully retracted. “Are only a pretend-ator.”

“Mister Boots,” I asked. “Did you just make a pun?”

“What’s that?”

Mike was not amused. “Wizard, if we see one of these big wolves, or more than one, it would be great if you remembered how to use your magic voodoo.”

“Yeah, no problem. Let’s try to avoid that, OK?”

“If it makes you feel better about it, wizard,” Boots looked up at me. “Grizzle wolves are solitary, they do not hunt in packs.”

“Thanks.”

“Unless they are very hungry,” he added.

“You didn’t really need to tell me that bit of trivia.”

“Cut the chatter,” Mike made a chopping motion with his free hand. “We will check that building first,” he pointed to a tall, skinny, Gothic monument, thing, that towered above the park we had landed in.

“That is the,” Giselle bent over to brush leaves away from a sign along the walkway. “Tour Saint-Jacques. The tower is all that remains of a sixteenth century church, that was destroyed in the French revolution.” She straightened up. “It doesn’t sound like we could live in there.”

“No but,” Mike started walking and gestured for us to follow him. “We need a defensible position near this portal site. We can at least use it to store our gear, and any gear we acquire. Let’s move. Duke, Boots, you stay with us.”

“This is not good,” I whispered to Mike, though I don’t know what was the purpose of keeping our companions from hearing. Louder, I added, “One Nether beast is here, I doubt it came here alone.”

“There are many dangerous creatures in the Nether,” Macarius announced. “In my years there, I encountered many beasts, and our weapons were sometimes of no use against them, for they have magic as well as teeth and claws.” Even his stout shoulders shuddered slightly from a memory. “This grizzle wolf is something I have not seen, but we should be very wary of any foul creature from the Nether.”

“Does that include me?” Boots growled.

“You are grumpy, not foul. Although, your breath can be-”

“Macarius, do you have advice for us,” I didn’t want to get sidetracked by an argument with the cat. “For fighting a Nether wolf, or bear, or one of those salamander things I saw?”

“It shames me to say,” he admitted as Isabel squeezed his hand. “That we should stand ready behind you if we encounter such a beast, wizard. Use your powers.”

“Uh, you are OK with me using magic?” The new Macarius was very different.

“The use of magic in this world is an abomination,” he spat out the words. So, not entirely different. “It is an offense against the will of Almighty God.”

What I wanted to say was if God had a problem with me using magic on Earth, He should tell me that directly, or send one of His angels to smack some sense into me. Wisely, I kept my mouth shut, as Macarius walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Angels have instructed Zoraida and Mikeare,” he used the Certus agents’ real names, “to assist you in this Holy endeavor,” he continued. “Your ability to use magic here must be a gift from God, as part of His will.”

“OK,” I was relieved. “Then it’s-”

“Still, I fear for your soul.”

“Thanks for that. OK, if we stumble across any Nether beasties, I will try my best to stop them.”

“There is no try, wizard,” Boots reprimanded me. “Only do.”

“You have been watching too many movies.”

“We are moving,” Mike waved a hand to urge us into motion.