It was a march of five days from the Hills of Nebur to the Tower of Darkness.  They didn’t rush, but they didn’t dawdle either.  In fact, never had their emotions been so mixed.  Somehow they all knew that this time, DungeonMaster’s prediction would come true; after this battle, at last they would be going home.  But the battle itself scared them almost to death.  They would be fighting the most powerful enemy they had met in the Realm; it was so powerful, it wasn’t even from the Realm, but lived somewhere beyond the stars, bringing chaos and destruction and evil wherever it landed.  They had barely escaped with their lives the last time.

Of course, that last time, DungeonMaster was there to help them.  But now he was gone, hiding and waiting somewhere, and in his place they had the wild magick.  It was stronger than any magic they’d ever seen, but it was unstable, unpredictable, and perhaps—in the heat of battle—not even enough.  But they’d never know until it was too late.

When the wild magick was unleashed against the Orcs at Karina’s castle, some of the children seemed to suffer from it as well.  Sheila suffered the most damage from that first use of the wild magick.  The palms of her hands had been severely burned in the battle for Karina’s castle, and they didn’t seem to be getting any better.  The blisters would fill with water; the water would weep out; the cycle would repeat three or four times a day without ever healing, like some mythic torture handed down as a judgment from the gods.  The alternating pressure and pain meant that Sheila couldn’t even use her hands after the first day.  Bobby or Hank would have to help her eat and drink, while Diana’s hands became Sheila’s when the need was more personal.  Sheila bit her tongue and tried very hard not to say anything about it, but between the pain, the frustration and sheer exhaustion, she cried herself to sleep each night.

The first day, Sheila tried to make a joke of it: “I guess this wild magick doesn’t like me.”

The second day, Sheila stopped talking about the wild magick.

The third day, Sheila stopped talking.

Bobby dealt with it as best he could; keeping up an almost constant line of chatter, saying anything and everything he could think of to divert his sister and lift her spirits.  He told jokes; he did imitations; he reminded her of people they wanted to see when they got back home, as well as those they wanted to avoid.  In those five days the rest of the group learned more about Sheila and Bobby, their friends and relatives, than they thought they could ever remember.

But Bobby couldn’t keep it up forever.  That was when Uni would nuzzle up to him, offering by her presence what comfort she could.  Bobby never said anything when he was with Uni, except for one time.  Late on the third night, when almost everyone had drifted off to sleep, Presto was sure he heard Bobby mutter, “Why do you have to stay here with Orcs and stuff?  Why can’t you come with us?  I…”  Bobby’s voice broke.  “I love you, Uni.”

Overhearing that brought tears to Presto’s eyes.  Poor kid, he thought; I know what he’s going through.

All this affected Diana a bit differently.  She seemed constantly distracted, always looking to the horizon ahead and behind, yet not really looking for anything.  Hank and the others had to call her name two or sometimes three times to get her attention.

Eric insisted on dragging an Orc shield with him the whole way from Karina’s castle.  It had no enchantment that anyone could find; it wasn’t even good-looking.  But Eric insisted, even though he wouldn’t give anyone a reason.

When the suns were overhead on the fifth day, they spied the ruins of the Tower of Darkness.  Bobby had accidentally leveled the tower after he and Eric had retrieved the Box of Balefire.  When Eric opened the box, a shaft of blinding light was released that was the signal for the Nameless One to come to the Realm.  On instructions from DungeonMaster, they had buried the box.  The spot was easy to find.  Now, they’d have to dig it back up.

“What are we supposed to do, dig with our hands?  That’ll take forever!” Presto moaned.

Without a word, Eric walked up to the spot, plunged the edge of the Orc shield into the ground, scooped up some rocks and tossed them to the side.  He kept on working steadily and silently, as if he were still possessed by the wild magick.

“Well,” Diana joked, “I can’t let you have all the fun.”  She removed her necklace, a large piece of golden metal shaped like an inverted pyramid, and used it as best she could to shovel out rocks and dirt.

The others—except Sheila—would take their tools when they were exhausted and keep the digging going.  “This is nothing,” Bobby said as he scraped at the earth with Diana’s necklace.  “Remember when we were in the slave mines of Baramor?  That was rough.”

“Yeah,” Presto agreed, “plus DungeonMaster was in that ice thing.  I wish he was here now.”

“I know what you mean,” Hank nodded, “but we’re in charge this time.”

“Remember when Eric was in charge?” Bobby asked teasingly.

“Hey, don’t everybody jump on me at once!”

“I wasn’t going to,” Diana said.  She was sitting next to Eric; now, she turned to face him.  “You did your best, you got us to Darkhaven, and you almost got us home.  Besides, this time you brought that shield.”  She reached out and took one of Eric’s hands.  “Whatever happens next, we couldn’t have made it this far without you.”

Eric for once was at a loss for words.  Bobby wasn’t.

“ERIC AN’ DIANA
SITTIN’ IN A TREE…”

Eric lunged at Bobby; Bobby jumped at the last second, leaving Eric to fall on his face.  Eric chased the boy for another minute, until even he had to stop and join the others in laughing.  Bobby had lightened the mood, but only for a moment.  Soon they returned to their task, digging up the Box of Balefire.

It was late in the afternoon when the shield struck wood.  Everyone paused for a second, then doubled their efforts, trying to bring the box up as quickly as they could.  In a few minutes they were done and, fingers bruised by the rocks, they dragged the once-buried chest back to daylight.

To anyone who had never seen it before, there seemed to be nothing special about this wooden box with a simple pin lock.  It wasn’t especially big or fancifully decorated.  No one could have guessed what power it held.

Once it was up out of the pit, the six simply looked at the box.  “Well, who gets to do the honors?” Presto asked.

Everyone looked at Hank, the leader of the group since they arrived, but before he could speak…

“Nobody.  I mean, I don’t think, I don’t think we should…”

This was the first time in days that Sheila had spoken.  Everyone stared at her, waiting for her reasons.  She stammered, unable to put her thoughts into words.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere, and it’s sure not getting us home!” Eric blurted out as he reached for the box.

“I’m afraid!” Sheila suddenly yelled, her voice stopping Eric in mid-reach.  “Is that okay with you guys?  I’m afraid of what’ll happen.  We saw the No-Name before, and we barely survived it.”

“Sheila.”  Hank lightly took hold of Sheila’s arm.  “We were all there.  And we’re all just as scared as you are.”

“Speak for yourself,” Eric muttered.

“Oh?” Presto responded.  “You’re not scared?”

“I’m…Well, I’m terrified.  I just didn’t want Hank to speak for me.”

“Er-ric…” Bobby rolled his eyes.

The others smiled, including Sheila.  Hank looked into her eyes again.  “We can beat this thing.  We have the power.  I know we all felt it.  Just don’t be afraid.  This wild magick doesn’t seem to work unless we’re all a part of it.  If you’re afraid, I think it’ll know.”

Presto stood up.  “I say we all do it; all of us open the box.  We’re all going to have to use the wild magick together, right?”

As they all put their hands on the lid, Uni, knowing what was about to happen again, ran for shelter behind some rocks.

“Hmph,” Eric snorted.  “Never thought she’d turn out to be the brains behind this operation.”

“Everyone turn away,” Hank said.  “You remember how bright it is.”

The others nodded, turning their heads away while keeping one hand on the lid; Sheila could only hold onto a corner with her fingertips, and even that was painful.  Then, as if one of them had given a signal, the six children pulled the lid, opening the Box of Balefire.

A white-hot shaft of light stabbed into the sky above them, burning more fiercely than any of the Realm’s suns.  But this light was a beacon for a being more evil than any they had ever known.  And they were summoning it.

They waited for a minute, during which absolutely nothing happened.  The light continued to shoot into space, but no evil entity appeared in response.  After a second minute went by, Hank reached out and slammed the lid on the box.

“What was that for?” Diana asked.

“It’s not working.”  Hank never sounded madder or more frustrated.  “Why hasn’t he come?”

“Maybe he was in the shower?” Presto smiled lamely.

“He must have seen it,” Hank went on.  “He had to know we opened the box.”

“Hey guys!”

“What is it, Bobby?”

“I think he got the message.”

Bobby pointed to the northern horizon.  What seemed at first to be the funnel cloud of a tornado appeared miles away.  Suddenly there was a flash of lightning—from within the cloud.  It moved across the land, picking up speed, leveling whatever was in its path.  In less than a minute it had traveled ten miles, and was now half a mile away, moving swiftly toward them.

Presto swallowed.  “Well, I guess the plan’s working.”

“Yeah,” shouted Eric above a wind that was starting to howl, “except for one little problem.”

“What’s that?”

“How do we start this thing?”

“I didn’t do much of anything last time,” Bobby piped up.  “Maybe this is my turn.”  He started walking toward the Nameless One.

“BOBBY!”  Sheila ran to intercept him.

At the same time, Hank yelled, “SHEILA!  WAIT!” and ran toward both of them.  The three met up just as the Nameless One shot a blast of its cosmic power at them.  Out of reflex, Hank held out his left arm while grabbing Sheila with his right.  Sheila, with her left arm already around Bobby, had her right hand out toward the power.  It was insane to think that Hank and Sheila could simply hold out their hands and contain the awesome power of the nameless beast.

They contained it.  Not only that, they saw the part of the fireball closest to them start to change colors, as the first blast of the wild magick had.  As if he were in a trance, Bobby reached his hands up to the fire, which seemed to be the signal for the other three to come over.  Again they all gathered in a circle around the blast of cosmic power, frozen in the air before them.  Again they reached out and silently shaped the magic without knowing what they did or how they knew to do it.

No!  They felt the word more than heard it.  The power is mine!  How…  STOP!!

And, again, they sensed that the power had reached a critical point, and the six yelled with one voice:

"CTHULHU!"

Miles away, Venger had seen the balefire streak into the sky.  “Those children…  My master…”  His mount appeared in the flash of a thought, and he sped toward the light, then toward the pillar of cloud and lightning that hid his master.

And it was while he was tearing through the sky that he saw it…

The wild magick had caused the fireball to flare up a hundred times brighter than the balefire. It tossed the children and the baby unicorn over the barren landscape like dry leaves, but like dry leaves they landed lightly on the ground, with no bones broken.  At the center of the fireball, where there once stood the dark evil from beyond the stars, there was a strangely sweet ozone smell, like a tree after it has been hit by lightning.

Uni was the first to run to the spot.  She sniffed the air for a second, then nodded her head, whinnied in triumph and danced about.  She knew that the thing had been finally and utterly destroyed.

Hank almost didn’t dare ask as he struggled back onto his feet.  He felt like he’d been used for a tackling dummy; every muscle was sore.  “You…you think we did it?”

“Think, nothing,” Eric gloated; “I KNOW we did it!”

“Sis”, Bobby moaned, trying to sit up, “what’s wrong with the sky?”

“The sky?”  Sheila glanced about her.  Now that things had settled, everything looked pretty much the same; the four suns still shone in a blue sky.  “What do you see, Bobby?”

“Everything’s—this funny shade of red—Where are you?”

Sheila didn’t even try to stand.  She crawled as quickly as she could to Bobby.  When she was still three feet away from him she caught her breath.  The sky wasn’t red, but Bobby’s eyes were. The whites had changed to a dark dull brick-color.  The irises had deepened from pale blue to an almost purple, and were swollen, reducing the pupils to pin-points that admitted almost no light.

“Tell the truth, pal,” Hank said, “can you see anything at all?”

Bobby turned his head back and forth, although it may as well have been a pantomime.  “No, I guess not.”

“Well, I see double everything,” Presto said.  “You can have half of what I see.”

“Did you hit your head?” Sheila asked worriedly.

“Not my head; just my glasses.”  Now that he mentioned it, the others could see that both lenses were cracked.  “I shoulda known they’d get messed up in the end.”

Sheila sat by Bobby and reached out to touch him, but the burns on her hands were more severe now.  Before they were large and painful blisters; now the skin was charred black. Sheila thought she could see bone peeking through in spots.  The only way she could deal with the damage at first was to view the hands as not her own.  They were someone else’s; they were pictures from a medical textbook…

Ironically, there was one blessing.  The fire had destroyed the nerves in her skin.  For the first time in days, there was no pain.  Still, she couldn’t bend her fingers at all.  All she could do was brush her fingernails along Bobby’s cheek.  Still, he understood immediately who it was and what was being said.

“Sis, don’t worry, really,” Bobby said.  “Remember Terry’s dream?  I’m supposed to meet her in school when I get back.  I wasn’t blind in her dream.  So I’ll be fine.”

“Gee, ya think so?” Presto asked.  He didn’t try to disguise how worried he felt.

“Hey, why am I the only one with questions here?”

“This isn’t the time, Eric…”

“This IS the time!  We fought No-Name and we beat him!  We kept our part of the bargain.  Where’s the ticker-tape parade?  Where’s DungeonMaster?  WHERE’S THE WAY HOME?”

That moment was the closest Hank came to punching Eric out.  Instead, he deliberately sat on the ground.  “He’ll be here.  We just have to wait; that’s all.”

Eric spoke up loudly and bitterly.  “Well, here’s another fine mess DungeonMaster got us into.”

“You blame him, Eric?” Diana replied.  “That’s funny, because I blame you!”

“Diana—” Hank started.

“Come on, guys.  This all happened because Eric got mad at DungeonMaster and gave back his shield.”  She rounded on Eric.  “I trusted you, Eric!  I gave up my staff because of what you did!  Now you’re blaming DungeonMaster and—and—”  Diana tried to continue, but no words came.  Instead, she turned her back on the others, walked a few yards away and sat on a boulder, her face in her hands.  She seemed to be crying.

“Hold it, Diana!” Eric said, rising and starting toward her.  “You know I—”

Hank grabbed Eric’s shoulder.  “Leave her alone, Eric; for now, at least.”

The others rested for about fifteen minutes.  When Diana made no move to rejoin the group during that time, Hank walked over by himself to talk to her.  He waited for Diana to turn and face him.  When she didn’t, he spoke anyway.  “Diana, you know Eric better than that.  He’d never try to put us in danger.”  Still no reaction; he reached out and touched her shoulder.

That got a reaction.  Diana jumped like the boulder was on fire, landing seven feet away, spinning to face Hank.  Hank was stunned; on her face was sheer terror, such as she had only felt during their worst battles.  Hank strode over to her and grabbed her shoulders.  “What’s the matter?”

Diana had brought her own hands up to pull Hank’s hands away, but it was only a half-hearted effort of resistance before she let them fall away.  “Hank,” she said, barely above a whisper, “that first time we used the wild magick; I didn’t want to tell anyone but—it blew out the hearing in one ear.  This last blast got my other ear.  There’s just this high-pitched buzzing; it drowns out almost everything.”

Hank now noticed a few bits of dried blood in her right ear.  They were almost invisible behind her hair and against her dark skin, but there they were.  Hank’s mouth was as dry as a desert.  What have I gotten us into?  “Why—why didn’t you say something?”

Diana managed a half-smile.  “What were you guys going to do, take me to the nearest Emergency Room?  We haven’t seen too many of those.  And I didn’t want to be treated like an invalid.  Just—don’t tell the others.  I’ll take care of it when we get back.”

 “Very impressive,” an all-too-familiar voice growled from the air above them.  The others stood defensively around Bobby as Venger’s horse settled to the ground.  “I would have thought that my master could withstand any power, even the wild magick itself.  It seems I was mistaken.”

“It’s not your first mistake, Venger,” Bobby piped up defiantly, “so get used to it.”

The fire in Venger’s eyes flared up when Bobby said that, but Venger held his temper and went on as if he had heard nothing.  “There was, however, a pact between my master and me.  In exchange for defeating DungeonMaster and conquering the Realm, I was to learn of the wild magick.  I see that DungeonMaster has passed it on to you and that it has destroyed my master.  No matter.  I will simply take it from you.”

Concluded in
“The Face of a Child”