Part 4: The Realm

Green. Hank awoke to a vague impression that everything around him was green. And as he opened his eyes, he looked up into a cluster of green leaves; the underside of a shrub of some kind. For a moment whose length he could not measure, he thought he was back in his tenth year, the year he received as a Christmas present a large hard-backed book--also green--an illustrated history of Robin Hood. It had fascinated him like no piece of writing ever had, before or since. He seemed to spend most of the next year in libraries, the one in school and the one in town. He searched for anything, fact or fiction, written about Robin of Locksley, who (maybe) lived in England, who (maybe) bedeviled King John, and who made himself an outsider--an outlaw--to bring real justice back to England. Hank couldn't put it into words, but he knew, as surely as anyone could know anything at age ten, that he would need to know about Robin Hood when he was grown up--

Wait a minute; I AM grown-up! Hank came fully awake from his reverie, and crawled out from under the bush. As he did, he glanced down and--with no surprise but a sense of satisfaction--saw that he was once again wearing the garb of a Ranger; green tights, a tunic of leather, belt and boots. He'd made it back.

As he stood up, he looked around; all he could see was a forest. No trace of the others; no idea of how much time had passed. The trees were too thick here for him to see much of the sky. He thought he might be able to tell something from the sun--no, suns. The Realm had four suns, and three moons.

A minute went by; still no sign of the others. "HEY!" Hank yelled, "is anybody there?!"

"I'm over here," came an answer, "wherever here is!" Eric. Hank followed the sound, calling Eric's name every few seconds. After a minute, they stumbled into opposite sides of a clearing at the same time. Eric, too, was wearing the clothes of his old role in the Realm: the Cavalier, the knight without a lord. He wore a body suit of chain mail, golden breastplate and gauntlets, metal boots, accented by a short Roman cape.

"Well," Hank said, at a loss to say anything else, "we made it."

"Hey, I knew we would," Eric said, with an air of nonchalance. He was practically strutting. He looked much as he did the night before at the restaurant, telling Diana that he now thought of his time as the Cavalier as his glory days. "What surprised me was these clothes; they're still a perfect fit."

"Speak for yourself." They turned to face Presto, who literally stumbled out of the woods, wearing the heavy green robes and green slippers of his last visit. "These things always were two sizes too big."

"Where's your hat?" Hank asked.

"With the rest of the weapons, I guess. Did you guys see them?"

"Not yet," Hank said. "Maybe we need the others."

"Need the others for what?" Diana stepped out of the forest and into the clearing. She too wore what she had worn a decade earlier: an animal-pelt halter and loincloth, leather boots topped with the same kind of pelt, and gold jewelry--tiara, necklace, belt and armbands. She had matured in ten years' time as much as the others had, and yet she more closely resembled her youthful self. To put it politely, after ten years, although the muscles were better defined, her figure was still on the boyish side.

Eric didn't put it politely. "Hey, I expected you to fill that out a little more this time." He surprised himself by saying that--under normal circumstances he wouldn't have been so crude. But nothing in the past twenty-four hours had been normal circumstances, all of them were a little giddy and disoriented, and somehow all of them knew that Eric was just trying to break the tension, to still the questions that were on all their minds. They knew even if they couldn't put into words how they knew.

Diana, far from being insulted, decided to answer in kind. "Sorry to disappoint you, but the women in my family have never been known for growing the big ones. Besides, while you've been living it up on the Riviera, I've stayed in training."

"What's training got to do with it?"

"Those curves you're talking about--that all you guys obsess about--are either body fat or silicone, and I don't believe in either one."

"Excuses, excuses--" Erik smirked.

Diana smirked back. "Suit yourself, but somehow I don't think you've ever showered with a bunch of women athletes."

"Boy, where do I sign up for a job like that?"

By now, Presto was rolling on the ground laughing, and Hank was grinning as he leaned against a tree. "Did you two rehearse this routine, or what? Do you think we can get on with the mission, please?"

Presto caught his breath and looked around. "Yeah, where's Bobby? Has anybody seen him?"

"You'd think he'd be easy to spot."

"God, Eric, do you ever quit?" Diana asked, still with a playful edge as she tossed a twig at the Cavalier.

"BOBBY!" Hank called out. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," came a muffled voice from the edge of the clearing. "I'm over here."

"In that bush? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just--wait a minute, okay?"

"Wait?  For what? You wanted to get here worse than any of us," Presto reminded him.

"I know, I know. But--it's this costume. I feel like a dork, okay?"

"You've got to be kidding. We're all wearing the same stuff we did the last time," Hank said, amazed.

"Yeah, but you were older. And you don't have to worry about your ass hanging out."

Diana took a step toward the bush. "Are you embarrassed about me? Bobby, you know I think of you like you're my brother. Just come on out."

"You won't say anything?"

"Alright."

Slowly, with a deep blush, Bobby rose out from behind the bush. The outfit was large enough now to accommodate his larger body, but the outfit was the same: horned Viking helmet, studded leather vest, a fur loincloth, boots similar to Diana's and metal wristlets.

In spite of her promise, Diana whistled and started applauding. "Alright! Chippendale dancer!" Bobby blushed an even deeper red and turned away from the group.

"A bashful Barbarian? Now I've seen everything."

Diana gave Eric a brief yet icy look, then turned back. "Bobby, I swear sometimes you are just like my brother. Now will you come on?" She crossed the clearing in a few quick strides and grabbed his wrist to turn him toward the others. Halfway through the turn, though, she stopped and looked at him in amused surprise. "Bobby O'Neill, you've got a--"

"Don't broadcast it, willya?"

"A TATTOO?!"

The others had been waiting for Bobby to come to them; now, with this bit of news, they decided to go to him. There, on the back of the right shoulderblade, almost hidden by the vest, was the image of a hand, palm facing out, colored a deep red.

"You're just full of surprises today," Eric remarked. "When did this happen?"

"I got it during a road trip with the ball team. We were partying pretty heavy afterwards--"

"I'll bet your parents went through the roof," Diana said.

"Not really," Bobby smiled. "I at least had enough sense to get the family crest."

Presto had been studying the tattoo as if it were an exhibit in a museum. When Bobby said that, though, he started up. "Whoa; you're related to THAT O'Neill?!"

Bobby nodded, too proud now to be embarrassed. "My dad traced our family a few years ago; got us all the way back to Ireland."

Presto shook his head. "Fantastic."

"So let us in on it," Eric interrupted. "What's so great about a red hand?"

"The O'Neills were a major warrior clan hundreds of years ago, and the red hand of O'Neill is an amazing story..."

"A story, young ones, which must wait for another time."

It was the voice they'd been waiting for, and yet dreading. They turned back to the clearing as one. He looked just the same; short, balding, but with a grey fringe of hair hanging well down his back, red robes with an elaborate gold design. Not an imposing figure, but one which held the fate of the entire Realm in its power.

Bobby cut off any other questions: "Where's Sheila?"

"I wish I knew, Barbarian. She is warded from my magic, in a place that I cannot find."

"What about Venger?" Hank asked--the question that the rest of them had been trying to avoid. "Is he still locked in the Crystal Cavern?"

"I cannot tell you that either. The very qualities of the Cavern that keep Venger from getting out prevents me from looking in. If I did, he would surely escape. For now, I can only say that I have seen no sign of him in the Realm."

"Two questions and two 'I don't know's--the years haven't been kind to you, DM," Eric said. "Maybe you can answer this one; are we going to be here for months again?"

DungeonMaster seemed to ignore Eric's insults as he said, "No, Cavalier, I can answer that. You will only be here for a day--two at the most."

"I like the odds already," Presto said. "Why so short?"

"Because if you do not succeed at what you must do, both this Realm and your world are doomed to disaster."

"Suddenly I don't like the odds."

"Why exactly are we back here?" Diana asked. "And what about the doll?"

"The doll was a gateway between our two worlds. But there is another, and there is an evil force in the Great Desert to the east that must not be allowed to pass through it."

"The Great Desert?" Eric asked, much more cheerfully than before. "Hey, the odds just got good again. We can get our old buddy Rahmoud to help us fight this evil whatchamacallit. What is it, by the way?"

"The great evil, Cavalier, is Rahmoud."

"Forget what I said about the odds."

"No way, DungeonMaster; he was one of the good guys."

"So he was, Barbarian, until his daughter Ayisha disappeared again. Then despair clouded his reason, as did a drug, and the influence of his Prime Minister, Majnoun. He has convinced Rahmoud that his daughter is being held prisoner in one of the villages near Rahmoud's palace. You are here to stop Rahmoud and his army."

"What about Ayisha? Where is she?"

"I am sorry, Acrobat, but I cannot see her, either. Perhaps she is imprisoned with your friend."

Hank asked, "What about this other gateway?"

"As to that, I know the answer, but it is not my place to tell you. Your weapons are in the clearing, though you will find that the greatest help will come from the least among you. And do not fear; whether you know it or not, you have all that you need." DungeonMaster fell silent; seeing him unmoving, the others turned to gather up the weapons.

"Hold it, everybody!" Hank snapped. "You've got to tell us, without disappearing on us; who's supposed to fill us in about the gateway?"

"I guess it's me." They all turned to look at Bobby. In the instant that they did so--DungeonMaster vanished.

"Well," sighed Presto, "some things never change."

They walked across the clearing to the small pile of magic items they had found in the Realm, and left behind, the first time. Hank lifted his energy-bow, not even bothering to draw the string, just feeling the comfortable heft of it for the first time in a decade. Presto simply glanced inside his conical green hat, saw the purple glowing light within, and put it on his head. Eric, on the other hand, grabbed at his shield like a toddler seizing a private toy, intent on not letting it go ever again. Diana picked up a short wooden rod, and seemed not to move a muscle as it quickly grew, stretched and evolved into its various forms: vaulting-pole, javelin, quarter-staff.

Bobby quietly walked over to the pile, and did not reach for the large wooden club. It seemed to grow in proportion, as he had grown, and was now almost as tall as he was when he was first in the Realm. Yet he ignored it to pick up the remaining weapon: Sheila's cloak, capable of rendering the wearer not only invisible but untouchable--the perfect device for a Thief. Bobby quietly and thoughtfuly fingered the cloak.

"Bobby," Diana asked, "what do you mean, it's your place to tell us?"

"Well, at first I didn't know what gateway he was talking about. In fact, I'm not even sure I understand it now. And I've been trying to tell you all day, but between one thing and another--"

"Get to the point," Eric snapped. "Does Sheila have something to do with the gateway?"

"I guess, but I don't know how. Anyway, what I've been trying to tell you guys is, Sheila's pregnant. She's supposed to have her baby any time now." The others just looked at Bobby in stunned amazement. He grinned sheepishly back at them. "Surprise."

Coming July15 (actually July 10, since I'll be out of town on the 15th):

Part 5: The Great Desert