Our story thus far: Oh, it’s complicated. Just go back to Chapter 1, and at the bottom of the page under the “Published by Warren Bluhm” paragraph, click on the next chapter. Repeat until you’re back here.
“OK,” Dejah said then. “Let’s just assume that the Evil One is coming, and he has at least a couple of worblatts and that big whoever-he-is guy working for him. What do we do?”
“I’m going to go inside and hide,” Summer said.
“Right. Good dog,” Dejah told her little sister. “As for the rest of us, who do we have to defend the universe? My dear Daddy, who’s a pacifist but at least he feeds us twice a day, an elfin being of some kind —”
“I would tell you the name of our kind, but you couldn’t pronounce it,” Grenn said with a grim smile.
“Hey! Like Spock,” Dejah said, and seeing the look on my face, added, “I told you. I watch Star Trek with you. Can you watch it more often, please?”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I promised.
“All right, so in order of appearance — not counting the worblatt foot — and darn it, Daddy, pick up the yard when this is over! — we have Grenn, the eagles, Seth the Dragon, and the great buck and his family,” Dejah said, and calling to the white-tailed deer family, asked, “What are your names anyway?”
“Names? We have no names,” said the buck. “We know who we are.”
“Holy cow, an obscure Fantastic Four reference,” Grenn said.
“You know the Fantastic Four?” I gasped. “That’s impossible, man!”
“Yes, it is,” the elf said with an appreciative smile. “Good one.”
“What was that all about?” Seth asked.
“If you know, you know,” said Grenn. “Moving on, I could probably get a few of my friends together to handle this thing.”
“And the deer world is with you,” said the doe.
“And as you can see, I have already mustered my finest warriors,” the eagle said, indicating the convocation of eagles perched along my rooftop.
“You figure we’re going into battle, then,” I said uneasily.
“What else does one do when our world is threatened with extinction?” asked the eagle. “We defend our homes!”
“We don’t even know if the prophecy is real —” I began.
“Blasphemy!” one of the eagles screeched. It was the same eagle who had screeched that word, before. Perhaps it was the only English word he knew.
“— and even if it is, we don’t know if today is the day it predicted!” I finished.
“What day is that?” asked Summer, whose short-term memory is almost as bad as mine.
The elf, the dragon and the head eagle grew serious and chanted in unison, ““In the time of magic there will come a day when the dimensions merge and tongues are unlocked to a human. Be on watch against the Evil One on that day, lest it consume all in its path.”
“You really think this is all about that?” asked the buck.
Grenn looked at the four deer with a frustrated expression, which then softened. “Oh, that’s right. You’re new here. Yes, we’re thinking this might be the day of the great prophecy, especially since —” indicating yours truly — “he usually can’t understand a word any of us says.”
“Oh — ‘tongues are unlocked to a human’ — I see,” said the doe.
“So we’re on watch against the Evil One, to keep it from consuming everything in its path,” said the dragon.
“What do we do now?” asked one of the fawns.
“We wait,” the lead eagle said.
I put an affectation in my voice and added, “And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.”
“That reminds me,” Summer said. “Can we watch Casablanca again when this is over?”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for an old movie buff,” Seth said.
“I’m not. But I think Claude Rains is a hottie,” said Summer.
The eagle looked perplexed. “Clawed rains? How do you claw rain?”
As if on cue — I’ve been saying that a lot, haven’t I? — a tremendous lightning bolt struck in the middle of the field, making us all jump, and in the smoking place where the lightning had struck, something began to emerge.
