Good Ogre (18 page)

“Why would he say that?” Melvin asked.

“Dude, it's a long story,” Dirk answered. “But Ricky knows that Max is a wizard.”

Megan frowned. “Who else knows? Is this like some secret the whole school knows except for us?”

“Nobody else,” Ricky answered through the door. “At least I never said anything. Why would I? Who'd believe me?”

Max considered his options. The bane of his existence, his archenemy, the kid who terrorized him and everyone like him, was locked safely away on the other side of the door. And he
claimed
to be his old normal human self—a very muscular, athletic, and proficient-at-delivering-pain self. But if he had been turned into some kind of horrible monster like most of the town, why would he be locked in a bathroom? Maybe a freak accident . . . maybe not.

“Hey Max,” Ricky continued, “I know I'm kind of a jerk, okay? I don't know why I do what I do.”

“It's not a big mystery,” Melvin said, leaning toward the stall door. “I mean, if you really want answers, you pick on people like us because you have no self-esteem. Being the best athlete and winning all those trophies doesn't cut it for you. You don't like yourself—for whatever reason—so you hurt the people who can't fight back. You're a bully—but it has nothing to do with us. We're fine. Your problem is with you.”

There was a moment of silence as Melvin's words sunk in.

“So you going to let me out or what?” Ricky continued, but his voice had softened. “Look, I get it—if I were you I totally wouldn't let me out either. You have no reason to trust me. But I have no interest in hurting you. That's the truth.”

Max turned to the others and considered them for a moment. Here they were, the nerds and geeks—the kids on the lowest rung of the social ladder—and they were doing their best to save the world. He thought back to what Dirk had said when they found the gracon
helpless in the basement.
If you become the thing that you're fighting against, what's the point? Nobody said being the good guys was easy.
He put his hand on his friend's shoulder:

“Dirk, you're like one of the wisest people I know.”

Dirk nodded as if Max's compliment was the most appropriate thing he could have said at that moment. “As a bard, I probably have like a sixteen or seventeen wisdom. So yeah, you're probably right.”

“What would you do with old Ricky here?” Max asked.

“We let him out. And if he's lying to us, that's not
very smart. He's seen what you do, Max, when you're all wizardly and stuff.”

Max nodded and turned to the others. “I agree.”

“Are you sure?” Dwight asked. “This is the same guy who took you to the Tower as a prisoner. The same guy who fought alongside Rezormoor Dreadbringer and tried to destroy you.”

“Maybe,” Max answered. “Or maybe not.” He turned to Moki. “Moki, can I ask you and your tail to do us another favor?”

Moki beamed at the thought of being helpful. “Do I get to burn something?”

“Absolutely. Would you mind melting through this lock? You know, like you did at the Tower?”

Dirk lifted the small fire kitten to the stall door. Moki produced the bright blue flame on his tail and inserted it into the mechanism.

“You're letting me out?” Ricky asked.

“We're letting you out,” Max confirmed.

Moki turned the metal lock bright red and then withdrew his tail. “It's all gooey now.”

Max looked at Dwight and the dwarf understood.
“I'll draw my axe and stand here, just in case.” The others moved back as Dwight took his place. Max moved back as well, recalling the combustion spell he'd memorized long ago.

“Okay, open it,” Max said.

There was no resistance from the lock as the door swung open. Max had been prepared for all kinds of monstrous things to come spilling out, but instead Ricky just stood there, dressed in his wrestling singlet, with dark rings beneath his eyes. Not everyone was built to pull off wearing the skin-tight wrestling singlet, but somehow Ricky did. He didn't have the huge, hulking muscles that Wayne had, but he had the thick neck, broad chest, and powerful arms of a kid with the right genetics and a lifetime spent in the wrestling room.

“Can I come out?” Ricky asked.

Max nodded and Ricky walked out of the stall. He paused at the sight of Dwight holding his axe at the ready. The dwarf shrugged. “Hey there.”

“Uh, hey.” Ricky went to the sink and turned the water on, cupping his hand beneath the faucet and drinking for at least a minute. When he finished, he
turned the faucet off and wiped his mouth dry.

“I guess you were thirsty,” Melvin said.

Dirk nodded knowingly. “Toilets . . . lots of water—but probably not worth drinking.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Ricky admitted. He then looked the group over. “So I guess you guys hit a costume store on the way here? I sort of get what you were going for, except for Grandpa.” Ricky smiled at Max. There was a heartbeat or two of silence; then everyone looked at Max and began to laugh.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PENUMBRA

A
S IT TURNED OUT,
R
ICKY
wasn't the only wrestler locked in the bathroom. Five more of his pals (other kids in the school might have used the word “gang”) were also trapped. They had had a similar change of heart when it came to how they viewed their rescuers—even if those rescuers were dressed like they'd walked off the set of a fantasy movie. Apparently spending the night in a toilet stall presented a lot of time for soul-searching.

Dirk took on the job of getting the wrestlers up to speed. “I am a bard, after all,” he announced. “Storytelling is what I do.”

Meanwhile the pounding on the door continued. Max had grown quiet, sitting near a shiny silver garbage
can and flipping through the pages of the
Codex
. He paused when he saw the next heading, then carefully read on:

On the maelshadow

E
VERY CENTURY OR SO A HERO,
wizard, or other champion decides it is their destiny to challenge the Maelshadow and defeat the Lord of Shadows for the good of the three realms. Such individuals have probably been spending too much time pondering their greatness while neglecting their studies. As a result, their quests have ended badly. The Maelshadow, you see, is wholly unnatural (much like the McNugget). And therein lies the problem: You can't simply poke a noncorporeal creature with a sword. Shadow cannot be harmed.

There is a legend, however, as old as language itself. It whispers not of a chosen boy, descended from the bloodline of an arch-sorcerer, who finds the courage to defeat the Maelshadow with a ragtag group of friends and a magical book (sorry to get your hopes up), but rather that a creature born of the Shadrus might ultimately defeat the Ruler of the Shadrus:
“For only shadow may drive shadow to light.” Either that or the legend is actually a marketing slogan for sunscreen.

So whether going into battle against an intangible malicious entity who commands great reserves of dark magic, or avoiding red, painful skin due to spending too much time outdoors, try to get a little shadow working on your side. Because without it, you don't stand a chance.

Max sighed and closed the book. He'd been struggling to figure out a way to defeat the Maelshadow, and the truth was, he really didn't know much about him. He remembered Rezormoor Dreadbringer's words when the sorcerer threatened to turn him over to the Lord of Shadows:
There's something about your blood, and I believe the Lord of Shadows would like to make a withdrawal.
What was it about his blood that was so important? Max had thought everything was connected to the
Codex of Infinite Knowability
, but now he wasn't so sure. Dreadbringer was the one who wanted the magical book, and the one who had been secretly working against the Maelshadow. That thought suddenly gave Max an idea.

“I have a plan,” he announced to the group. Puff blinked at him several times.

“You mean you didn't have one before?”

“Er, not so much.”

“There's always the headlong-rush-into-battle-and-just-hope-it-works-out strategy,” Dirk said.

“And does it?” Megan asked. “Work out, I mean?”

“Not without a lot of respawning,” Dirk admitted.

Max put his hands up to stop the discussion. “It doesn't matter, because now I have a plan.”

“So you think you know how to defeat the Maelshadow, then?” Dwight asked. “I saw you reading from the
Codex
. You figured it out?”

“No, not really,” Max replied. “You see, the only thing I know about the Maelshadow is that it doesn't seem interested in the
Codex
like everyone else that's been chasing me. The Maelshadow is after my blood.”

“Gross,” Sydney added.

“You think the Maelshadow is a vampire?” Dirk asked. “Because that would be—”

“No it wouldn't,” Megan interrupted, knowing exactly what Dirk was going to say.

“Maybe a little,” Dirk said, sulking.

“But that's not the point,” Max continued, getting the conversation back on track. “I may not know much
about the Maelshadow, but I know a lot about the person who tried to destroy him.”

“Rezormoor Dreadbringer,” Puff said.

“Exactly. So I don't have to come up with some kind of ingenious way to beat him—I just need to pick up where Rezormoor left off.”

“Because what he needed was you and your book,” Dwight said, catching on. “Which you already have.”

“Yeah, but he also needed that special scale thingy,” Dirk added.

“The serpent's escutcheon,” Puff replied. “But we don't have any of that.”

“Don't we?” Max said, looking at Puff.

Moki looked back and forth between Max and Puff. “I have no idea what's going on, but it's very exciting.”

“Well, technically . . . ,” Puff began, looking down at his chest.

“Oh, dude, I get it!” Dirk exclaimed. “Puff still has all his armor on—it's just inside out. That's how a regular dragon gets turned into a fluff dragon—they put their scales on backward.”

“And then the serpent's escutcheon turns against us,” Puff continued. “It changes us.”

Dirk turned to the others and explained. “The serpent's escutcheon is like a special scale over a dragon's heart, and it's awesome. It can't be pierced by a normal weapon, and it reflects magic away. Rezormoor Breadbringer—”

“Dreadbringer,” Dwight corrected.

“Yeah, that guy—he had this whole plan to capture Max and use him. Because the only magic powerful enough to shape those scales into armor is the Prime Spells, and the only place you can find the Prime Spells is in the
Codex of Infinite Knowability
.”

“Which only Max can read,” Sydney said.

Megan shifted her staff, pulling it close. “So this Rezormoor guy is the one who sent the unicorn after you.”

“Exactly,” Max agreed. “And he threatened to kill my friends if I didn't do what he said. I mean, you can't just hand the most powerful spell book in the universe over to someone without some leverage.”

“Only Max tricked him,” Puff continued. “Made him think the
Codex
wasn't working. And we used that time to escape, get the book back, and take Rezormoor and his minions out.” They all looked at Ricky, who shrugged.

“What can I say. I picked the wrong team,” he said. The other wrestlers looked at their captain strangely. “I'll tell you guys about it later. Or maybe I won't—I'll have to think about it.”

“But all of this is to say that Rezormoor Dreadbringer had a plan to defeat the Maelshadow,” Max said. “I know what that plan was, and I have the ability to finish it.”

“What are you getting at exactly?” Melvin asked. “You're going to make that suit of armor?”

“I am,” Max announced.

“And that's what the
Codex
said to do?” Megan asked him.

Max frowned. “Not exactly. But all I can hope is that Rezormoor knew something that I didn't, and that once I'm in the armor, I'll figure it out.”

“Besides,” Dirk added, “you have the
Codex
and all its spells.”

Max nodded. “Okay then, I was able to do this in the Magrus once before. But it's the magical realm, and I had the
Codex
at its birthplace. It's not going to be that easy here. In fact, it may take everything I've got. I guess I'm just saying that this is going to have to work,
because I won't have the strength to do anything else if it doesn't.”

“No problemo,” Dirk said. “Like you said—you've done it once; you can do it again.”

It turned out to be much harder than Max ever imagined.

He had the
Codex
in both hands and pressed his will into it. Where the sensation in the Magrus had been like two magnets coming together, doing it in the strange Malaspire, which bridged the realms of the Shadrus, the Techrus, and the umbraverse, was like walking headlong into a hurricane. When he came upon the Prime Spells, his mind called out:
Parity!
Sweat broke out on his forehead as he focused the power of the spell.

“Point at it,” he said to Puff. The fluff dragon nodded and drew his paw to his chest.

Max let the Prime Spell Go.
Parity—to balance or make equivalent.
A second version of the magical scale appeared before Puff as a tremor rumbled through the room. The rhythmic banging at the door paused.

“Max magic,” Dirk explained. “Big stuff.”

Max kept hold of the spell as it threatened to return to the
Codex
. He clenched his jaw and forced it to
fold over itself, redirecting its surge back to where he wanted. He directed the spell to touch both the scale on the floor and Puff's.
Parity,
he thought again. The vibration moved through the room, knocking one of the glass mirrors sideways. But there were three scales on the floor now.

“Max, something strange is going on—” Puff started to say, but Max interrupted his friend, talking through clenched teeth:

“Hold on—just don't move!” Max had to perform the same folding and grouping procedure twice more, until there were fifteen of the most precious dragon scales on earth spread across the blue tiles of the bathroom. Sweat dripped from him now and he felt his body shaking. But Max wasn't done yet.

He let go of the spell and felt it retreat into the magical book, his mind chasing after it, like a race car drafting behind the leader. He'd never done that before, but then again, he'd never had to.
Unity,
he called out, and he felt the spell move toward him. “Stand back,” he managed to say, the words barely escaping his labored breathing. Puff nodded and stepped back, but he kept looking at his chest with a strange expression.

“Max, are you okay?” Megan asked. “Can I help you?”

“Please, just stay back,” he answered. He didn't want Megan close as he tried to focus on what he was doing. He probably sounded angry, but it wasn't his intention. It was all he could do to keep the spell under control. He brought it over the armor and spoke the word: “Unity.”

The room shook more violently now. His friends had to grab hold of whatever was near them in order to keep from stumbling.

“Max is doing all this?” Ricky asked, wide-eyed.

“Max is the most powerful wizard in the three realms,” Dwight answered.

The Prime Spell did as it was directed, suddenly merging the small pieces of scale into one large piece.

“Wow,” Melvin said, his jaw hanging open. “I mean, wow . . .”

Max released the spell, and he felt muscle spasms shoot up and down his back. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes. He took a deep breath, but it must have sounded like a gasp.

“Max, stop,” Megan insisted. “It's too much.”

Max shook his head, unable to waste the energy needed to speak. He followed the spell back into the
Codex
, resting for just a moment as its powerful gravity pulled him along with it. He found the next spell at once, and pulled it from the
Codex
. His vision narrowed and he felt the world spin—he nearly blacked out. But he grabbed hold of the wall and commanded the spell: “Panoply!” He pictured the unique set of armor in his mind, as if he had been the very smith who had fashioned it in the first place. Such knowledge had come to him once before at the top of the Wizard's Tower, and as before he was unsure of its source. But for now it was simply enough that he could bend the scale with the Prime Spell and force it into an intricate, nearly impossible design.

A wave of power crashed through the room, breaking every mirror and cracking the sinks. Bits of blue tile shattered as a large crack formed in the wall. Then there was a loud groan that emanated from the Malaspire itself, and they felt the whole structure shift.

“Whoa!” Ricky exclaimed. He stared through the dust and debris at a black, shimmering suit of armor. The back of it was rippling and moving like liquid. They all watched as Max stepped forward, but he suddenly collapsed on his hands and knees.