Our story thus far: “We seem to have stumbled across quite a complicated incident,” the doe said. “You don’t know the half of it,” I agreed. “And neither do you,” said yet another new voice, this time from above. It was the eagle again, and he had company.
It was a convocation of eagles to be exact — the eagle we met a few minutes earlier had returned with a dozen or more friends, and they all perched along the peak of our rooftop.
“I ain’t scared of you,” said Bellzy the worblatt.
“Yes, you are,” said the imperious eagle who had visited a few minutes ago and now was back with a few of his close friends. From the look in the big monster’s eyes, the eagle was right.
“Say what you’ve come to say,” said the great buck.
“This is interesting,” murmured Dejah, who had found her way to my side during all this discussion. “The head eagle and the big horse with the antlers are both acting like they’re used to being in charge.”
“You’re right, that’s kind of funny,” I said.
“It’s extremely funny,” Dejah said. “Everyone should know that Summer and I are in charge.” I let that remark hang in the air. Being unaccustomed to my retrievers talking, I couldn’t tell if she was serious or deadpan-joking.
“The events of this morning suggest fulfillment of a great prophecy in our eagle culture,” said the lead eagle.
“Let me guess,” said Grenn the elfin one, his eyes rolling.
“Please don’t interrupt,” the eagle said, unaccustomed to being interrupted. “The prophecy says, ‘In the time of magic there will come a day when the dimensions merge and tongues are unlocked to a human. Be on watch —’”
“‘Be on watch against the Evil One on that day, lest it consume all in its path.’ Yeah, yeah. tell me something we don’t know,” Grenn said.
“I guess the prophecy wasn’t from elf culture OR dragon culture,” Seth the Dragon admitted.
“Doesn’t matter,” Grenn said. “What are we going to do about it?”
“We came because we heard a loud voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once,” he eagle said. “Was that the Evil One?”
“I was just going to ask our tall companions here,” said the great buck, indicating Bellzy and Bub, the worblatts, who looked uncomfortable.
“Well, to be perfectly honest —” said Bub.
“Yeah, of course it was the Evil One,” Bellzy interrupted. “Who else would want to destroy everything in his path?”
If Dejah had eyebrows, they would have lifted, but she remained silent.
“Well, then, what are we going to do about this?” asked the doe, who was a little distracted because the fawns had started to prance around each other.
“Why would we discuss strategy with two of the Evil One’s allies standing in that field listening?” The eagle had a point.
“Are the dimensions really merging?” Summer asked suddenly.
“What?” said several beings at once.
“Well, there’s that inter-dimensional portal thing, and the worblatts and the really big guy came through, but is that the same thing as the dimensions merging?” Summer said. “If whole dimensions were banging together, wouldn’t there be a little more — what’s the word? — chaos going on?”
“We got a human who can suddenly understand what we’re talking about, and a small crowd of us getting more crowded by the minute,” Grenn said. “Isn’t that chaotic enough for ya?”
“My little sister has a point,” Dejah said. “This is the time of magic — it’s October, after all — and it’s a really weird day, but is it really THAT day?”
“Oh, come on, guys,” said Bellzy. “I’m telling you, it’s that day. Why else would the boss be here?”
“But he hesitated,” Seth said. “He got all worked up when the dogs asked why he wanted to destroy everything, but then he walked off to think about it instead of just going ahead and destroying us all.”
Everyone turned to look at the worblatts, who appeared to be conflicted. After a few moments of awkward silence, Bub seemed to make up his mind.
“I’m going to tell them,” Bub said.
“Don’t you dare!” Bellzy flared.
