Chapter 26
The Ego Trip, Part 2A:
Surprises "They are the other two companions?" the flabbergasted Hunter demanded, staring with open contempt at George and Ringo, who were yawning and shivering in the cool dawn air. They’d bought coats, gloves, and hiking boots among other supplies, but morning had come overcast and colder than they’d expected. And neither one had gotten much sleep after Paul and John came back, as they’d spent a good portion of the night in confab. "And I thought you two were weaklings! This pair will die merely from walking! They’re not even capable of carrying supplies!"
"Yeah, they’re pretty pathetic, aren’t they," said John. He and Paul carried bags slung over their shoulders, and Paul wore a backpack; the other two had merely their clothes. "Sorry to lumber you with ‘em."
The Hunter looked like he was about to turn on his heel and leave. But he took a deep breath and muttered, "Surely my Lord Indle has a reason for this that I can’t see." He had transferred his sword to his hip—had it grown smaller?—so he could wear an enormous backpack with a bedroll stuck through it, and his hair was becomingly tousled from sleep. Now he ran his fingers through it. "Never in my existence have I seen a less promising group of men. I have seen women—scullery maids—whores—more fit to undertake a journey. Even the shameful female-men would reject you."
"We just know you'll protect us, Mister Hunter," chorused Ringo and George—they’d practiced the night before.
The Hunter looked contempt at them. "I warn you, children, I have little patience for fools."
"If you were a doctor, would you have little fools for patients?" Ringo asked brightly. He was rewarded with a hard glare, which drifted to the minimal supplies visible among the four.
"Have you no bedrolls?" the Hunter said, incredulous. "No waterskins? No rope? Not even a knife among you?"
"We figure we’ll find some streams or something along the way," said Paul. "The other stuff…." He shrugged. "Didn’t know we needed it."
For once, words failed the Hunter. He merely shook his head, no doubt taking consolation in the thought that this would be a quick journey indeed. "Come," he said at last.
Off they trekked behind the Hunter, who led them around the inn and its parts and up the road that led into the hills, which was deserted this early in the morning except for a caravan far ahead. He strode swiftly despite his load and never once turned his head to see whether the four were keeping up with him. They were, but only barely; while neither Paul nor John were having trouble, Ringo and George had to trot to keep up.
After they’d gone around a curve that took them behind a hill and hid them from the inn, John put on a burst of speed, drew level with the Hunter, and gazed up at him with big brown eyes. "Can we stop for a rest? Ringo is tired."
The Hunter drew up short. "By Indle, we've barely traveled two hundred yards!" He turned to behold George whispering to Ringo, who was bent over, panting. "We cannot stop this often—otherwise it’ll take us weeks to reach our goal!" With a heartfelt groan, the Hunter stepped toward Ringo with arms outstretched, saying, "Come, little weakling. I’ll carry you like the baby you are."
"Don't strain yourself," George said, his face a mask of seriousness. "I'll carry him."
"You?" Now the Hunter addressed Paul: "Have they not been taught to know their limits? The little lunatic will collapse after three steps!"
Paul gestured helplessly. "He has to find these things out for himself. We tell him and tell him, but he won't listen, so.…"
"As you wish." The big man stepped back and folded his arms, preparing to smirk when George collapsed under Ringo’s weight.
George breathed a quick prayer to his ring—now would be an absolutely rotten time for it to stick—and *ping* became a beautiful black stallion, already saddled and sporting saddlebags. He neighed happily and shook his mane.
They could almost see the exclamation marks springing from the Hunter’s head as he stared. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" Paul asked politely as John boosted Ringo onto George’s back.
The Hunter fondled the hilt of his sword, and composure flowed back into him. "Ah, I see, I see. You do have a tiny bit of useful magic. Of course, your werehorse will be of little use in a fight, or when we must approach the Amazon village, for no horse can pick its way through that dense vegetation. But at least he’ll be able to get out of the way during a battle. Come, now that you're able, we must keep going." He strode off, moving even faster than before.
The four hesitated a bit before following. "Man," said Paul, "if he had any more hot air in him he'd float away."
"He just may," Ringo murmured from his perch on high.
*** ~Try it and see what happens. Wow, this is going even better than I’d hoped! The way they’re rubbing up against each other, they should be fighting within three days!~
*** They walked for several hours during that cloudy, cool morning, winding between hills that gradually grew rockier and scrubbier as the land sloped upwards. Several times they were passed by caravans coming the other way, and once a solitary rider went whizzing by, but otherwise they traveled by themselves.
Every so often the Hunter veered off the road and bent to pick a plant, which he then tucked into his beltpouch. Trying to be friendly, Paul inquired as to what the Hunter was doing, and promptly regretted opening his mouth, for the man immediately launched into a nonstop narrative about the plants, animals, and soil of the region. He would point at a tree and say, "The bark of that tree is mildly poisonous when chewed, but if it’s boiled and powdered it adds a salty almond flavor to food." Then he would stop and nudge a patch of red grass. "This is vharry. It has no useful qualities for humans, but goats and sheep thrive on it; it needs little water and grows in all seasons. Shepherds and herding nomads call it ‘red life.’ " Whether he was showing off his vast knowledge or just enjoyed listening to his own superb lecturing voice mattered hardly at all; the four had not the slightest interest in what he had to say, nor could they tune it out or get away from it. They had to endure it until it was blessedly interrupted by their arrival at the portgate environs.
The gate itself was a double stone arch, a giant round-topped M jammed into the ground in a clearing, like a nonstandard advertisement for McDonald’s. Each archway was about ten feet high and seven feet wide, and the arches were carved with intricate designs. The clearing was fenced off with stone and barbed wire and heavily guarded at the entrance, where a tollkeeper relieved the four of nearly all the money they had left over after their shopping trip. Except to demand the toll and to nervously greet the Hunter, the tollkeeper said nothing to the party; obviously, there was no official concern about travelers’ destinations.
Standing before the left-hand arch, the Hunter traced his finger along six of the carvings. The archway began to glow and shimmer, and suddenly it showed a new scene: a grassy clearing backed by trees. Warm sunlight flooded through the archway. The Hunter said to the four, "Let me go first and ascertain that all is well—it’s not inconceivable that an ambush is waiting on the other side." He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and walked through the shimmer into the clearing. The four watched him look around for about half a minute before waving at them to come on. They trooped through (the shimmering field tingled as they encountered it) and emerged into the clearing, which smelled of fresh growth in recent rain and had a wide but rough path leading away from it through a tunnel of trees. Part of the clearing showed signs of having been camped in by a large party within the last week—burned-out campfires, abundant dung, empty kegs—but for the most part the portgate looked as unused as the Hunter had implied. Because of the clear sky, the air was slightly warmer than at the Rest at the Gate.
"The Forest of Screams," announced the Hunter to his assembled charges. "As I said yesterday, this was once a major trading route and portgate destination, but it has fallen into disfavor over the last few years due to the presence of several bandit gangs who prey on travelers. You might be wondering why there’s been no official attempt to exterminate these vermin."
"Of course, wonderin’ about it’s kept us up all night," John said.
The Hunter’s sarcasm detector was no more functional than it had been the previous day. "Politics. There is some question as to whose jurisdiction the Forest falls under, the Lord of Gonshill or the Syndic of Phorasp. The Forest overlaps both their lands, and neither side wants the other to exert its authority here, though both would benefit…." He droned on for five more minutes to his captive, bored, and impatient audience, concluding with "I suspect the problem will take care of itself once pickings become too slim to support these vermin, or too powerful for them to take on. Still, a party of our size should expect an attack, so be alert. And be silent."
At this he led them down the road, where it quickly joined up with the main highway, which, like the road in front of the Rest at the Gate, was paved stone. However, this road hadn’t been maintained or traveled much; weeds sprouted thickly in big cracks in the pavement, and the floor growth in the leafy forest had started to overgrow the sides of the road. Luckily, the pavement hadn’t yet fragmented seriously, so the little party could walk along it at a rapid clip without paying too much attention to where they put their feet, though George, with two extra legs to think about and the delicate burden on his back, focused much of his attention on the placement of his hooves. The trees rose high on both sides of the road, shutting out most of the light, though here and there a spotlight of sunlight bathed the road through a gap in the leaves. It was warm enough for Ringo to shed his winter gear; Paul would have "removed" his as well, but he didn’t want to tip his hand about his illusion just yet. Anyway, he’d spent a good deal of time tweaking it to make the real backpack look like it was affecting his illusory clothes, and he hated to dismiss his handiwork.
One happy result of the bandit threat was that the Hunter finally shut up, but the resulting silence wasn’t much better than his narration. Nor was their journey. Of the four, only Paul had spent much time outdoors (mostly on horseback and on his farm), and they all came very quickly to realize that fantasy novels with travel scenes left out the mundane details for a reason. Birdsong and mossy logs and chipmunks and flowers and trees are all very well, but not in endless and monotonous procession.
The only breaks in their forced march came when one of them had to relieve himself (except for George, who, like any good horse, did it on the run). The party would come to a halt, and the Hunter would look and listen very carefully for bad guys before declaring it safe for the sufferer to go off and do his business. Of course, the keener eyes and ears of Ringo and John were also on the job, and they perceived absolutely nothing—not that the four were afraid of anything as mundane as bandits! But the four, assured that they were perfectly alone, felt secure and relaxed.
Which is why the bandit attack came as such a surprise.
It came on their third stop, in mid-afternoon, when it was the Hunter’s turn to go. After the usual look-listen, he stumped off into the woods, unbuckling his belt as he went. He didn’t go far enough for the four to risk talking about him verbally, as they could very clearly hear him peeing—he had been saving it up for a long time—and grunting. But John lay his hands on everyone, and they exchanged silent insults, though nothing profound or interesting. The hours of walking and riding had numbed them; even Paul longed to rest, if only for psychological reasons.
Not surprisingly, Ringo was in the worst shape of the four; he’d never ridden so long before, and his legs and lower body had already begun to ache. But he refused to get down off George for this short a stop; I’LL NEVER WANT TO GET BACK UP IF I DO, he explained.
In an effort to help, John coated his hands with a very thin, very hot aura of water and began to massage Ringo’s thighs and calves.
OH, GOD, THAT FEELS GOOD, Ringo sighed, wriggling with pleasure in his seat and lifting his legs as best he could to give John more rubbing space. BUT YOU’RE SOAKING ME TROUSERS.
You’re getting ME wet too, George complained. He shivered and stamped a hoof.
Busily kneading away on Ringo’s left calf, Never fear, lads, I’ll dry you both off in a—
Zzzzpt-thunk!
"Yow!"
*pop*
* ~Whoa! Power spike!~
* John stumbled a bit as his palm passed through the space where Ringo’s leg had been and moistly slapped George’s stomach. Hey! George protested, flinching.
"What—" began Paul.
"Ho there, travelers!" came a voice from high in the trees.
Three entirely startled and as-yet uncomprehending heads looked up.
Robin Hood, or someone litigiously close to him in appearance, was standing on a branch about twenty feet overhead. Dressed entirely in forest greens and browns, except for the red feather in his jaunty cap, he perched on the branch with perfect ease in his soft leather boots, leaning against the trunk with his arms crossed over his chest and a small smile on his clean-shaven face. He gave two short whistles, and suddenly, on many branches overhead, more forest men either stepped out of camouflage or magically appeared. All aimed bows, slings, darts, or blowpipes at Paul and John, and when they shifted around on their branches they didn’t make a sound.
"It would be unnecessary of me to tell you not to make a move, eh?" Robin Hood said humorously. "On the other hand, such innocents as yourselves, traveling so openly in this wood, probably need the warning." He peered down at them, looking for something among them. "I do hope your friend, wherever he’s crawled off to, didn’t hurt himself terribly when he fell off his mount. If it had been our intention to hurt him, rest assured that that arrow would have done more than passed before his face." Now the three noticed an arrow stuck in a nearby tree trunk, still quivering slightly.
"You’re fortunate, silly travelers, that the first bandits you encountered were Eric o’ the Green and his men." Eric doffed his cap to them, revealing a head of blond curls. "Unlike many of the freemen of the Forest of Screams, we take only your ephemera and leave you the most valuable of your possessions: your lives. Quickly, now, remove all your possessions, including your clothes, and put them in a pile next to that gorgeous stallion. We’ll be taking him too—"
Eric broke off and looked past them. They turned and saw the Hunter standing between two trees, listening and watching. He’d come up just as silently as the bandits had; John hadn’t heard his approach at all.
Face neutral, the Hunter said, "Eric o’ the Green, eh? I know of you."
The bandit doffed his cap again. "I see my reputation precedes me."
"It does. And perhaps my reputation precedes me?"
"Perhaps it does. Your name is…?"
"My name is unimportant. Men call me the Hunter."
At once whispers broke out around and above them. Eric’s grin faded into an ugly frown, and he shouted, "Steady, my men! A desperate man will say anything!" The whispers subsided. To the Hunter, angrily: "No more jests, and no more wasting time! Throw down your goods before we throw down your lives! Our patience only goes so far!"
* ~Here it comes! Oh yeah!~
* Now it was the Hunter’s turn to grin. "Surely you will give me a chance to prove my identity?" And he drew his sword.
The blade was pitch black, but peculiarly illuminated so that one could see the runes etched into its surface. A thin wail arose from it, a shrill, hungry, mosquito cry that caused John to slap his hands over his ears and that set George’s ears twitching madly. As the sword completely left its sheath, it burst into black, smokeless flame that threw an eerie light over everything.
* ~Whattaya think of that, huh? Think you can beat it? Betcha can’t!~
* Eric froze.
The Hunter hoisted the sword up high and said, "Perhaps you doubt my identity, but can you say the same about Blackfire? Perhaps you know of Blackfire by some of its other names—the Hungry, Deathblade, Eater of Souls?"
The trees above erupted in rustle and shout as most of Eric’s men fled, leaping catlike from limb to limb; their weapons dropped from the trees like ripe fruit. Several, however—braver or more foolish than the rest—fired missiles at the Hunter. But the missiles curved in their flight to hit Blackfire. The flammable ones disintegrated as they touched the sword’s flaming aura; the nonflammable ones bounced off and lay smoking on the road.
The Hunter gave a bloodcurdling laugh. That was enough for the remaining bandits, who joined their fellows in mad flight. Eric himself hesitated only a moment longer to shout, "Damn you!" before hieing himself away.
When he was out of sight, the Hunter, still chuckling, sheathed Blackfire, and lowered his gaze to meet three pairs of eyes staring in somewhat annoyed astonishment (especially from John as he unclasped his ears). The Hunter’s grin grew bigger. "I see my sword was unknown to you. Well, let me assure you that though Blackfire hungers for blood, yours will not feed it without cause. I hope that you now fully appreciate just what my protection—or my wrath—means to you."
"Yes," Paul said shortly, wondering whether the sword could cut him.
"Uh-huh," said John, wondering if he could quench the black fire.
George nodded, wondering where Ringo had teleported to.
The same thought crossed everyone else’s mind about ten seconds later, when the Hunter moved to pick up his pack and suddenly realized they were one short. "Where is the little weakling? By Indle’s bald skull, has he run into the woods?"
"Er…." said Paul, wondering how to put this. "Sort of."
The Hunter threw up his hands in exasperation. "A chicken would be a more steadfast companion! Find him so we can proceed!"
While the Hunter started shrugging into his backpack, George *ping* became himself, and the three moved away in a little knot until they were well away from the Hunter. "Where could he’ve got to, d’you suppose?" said George.
Paul shook his head. "Hopefully not too far away."
"He went miles in New Zork," John said darkly. "I sure as fuck don’t hear him anywhere nearby. ‘Course, I haven’t been hearin’ anyone lately." He glanced back at the Hunter.
George’s gaze traveled with John’s. "That’s a hell of a sword, isn’t it?" he observed. "Who expected that schmuck to have something like that?"
"Later," Paul admonished. "Come on, spread out, maybe we’ll get lucky."
They fanned out in three different directions, pushing between trees and crashing through the underbrush, calling "Ringo! Where are you? Ringo!"
A few minutes later, something tapped George on the shoulder as he was spreading a pair of branches to peer into a small clearing.
* ~ Major power spike! Oh, yeah! There we go! He’s finally tapping into it! I should’ve set up something like this a long time ago!~
* "What?" George snapped, not bothering to turn around to see who it was.
The person tapped again, more urgently than before.
"What?" he repeated, but this time he let go of the branches and turned around.
At first he didn’t see anyone except a bare branch that swayed slightly in the wind; it took a couple of seconds for George to notice that the branch wasn’t attached to a tree.
"Ringo? Is that you?" (George felt sort of stupid speaking to nothing, but he knew Ringo could read lips a little.)
The branch bobbed up and down as if nodding. Suddenly it dropped. Automatically George lunged to catch it, but it caught itself, rose to its original altitude, and started gliding toward the road. George of course followed and even learned not to try to catch the stick when it fell, which was once every seven seconds or so as Ringo’s concentration faltered, then reasserted itself.
At the road, where the stick dropped point-down into a patch of dirt next to the road, he was joined by John and Paul, John having heard George’s exclamation and gathered in Paul. George explained what was going on; the stick swayed back and forth, then fell.
They all crouched or kneeled around the stick. "Um," said John, also feeling weird as he spoke to the stick, "so where are you, man?"
The stick jumped up and began scratching words in the hard-packed dirt of the trail, a laborious process made no easier by the stick’s frequent "pauses." But John made a little mud for a more yielding writing surface, and eventually the stick scratched out the word INN.
Paul said, "The Rest at the Gate?"
The stick rose again and, after some effort, wrote the letter Y.
"Shit!" Paul and John said in unison.
"All the way back there?" George groaned, envisioning an extra five or six hours of travel.
"What are you doing?" said the Hunter’s voice above them. "Why aren’t you searching for the little weakling?"
"Because we’ve found the little weakling," growled John, looking up from his crouch directly into the big man’s disapproving eyes.
The Hunter looked around. "Is this a jest?"
"There!" John waved at the stick and the words. The stick wagged at the Hunter.
"What…?" The Hunter knelt next to the stick, which fell over and rose again. Real confusion and disbelief showed in his face for a moment. He passed his hand through the air around the stick but found no invisible hand guiding it. Then he gave the three present Earthmen a stern glance. "What magic is this? Is the little weakling really moving this stick?"
They didn’t say anything, but something akin to Well, like, duh! was projected in their collective manner, and the Hunter got the message clearly enough. He stared at the words in the dirt for a surprisingly long time, apparently not absorbing their meaning. Finally he said, "Inn—he means the Rest at the Gate?"
"Yeah," said Paul.
"But—that’s more than a hundred miles from here!" the Hunter exploded. "How did he get there? And how can he be moving this stick from there?"
"He did and he can," John snapped in a tone that implied there would be no more information forthcoming. Actually, he (along with the other two) was almost as stunned as the Hunter that Ringo could reach across such a distance—the implications were staggering—but he wouldn’t have revealed this emotion to the Hunter for anything.
"I… see." The Hunter’s scowl deepened as he regarded the three and the stick. "I see. Very well." To the stick. "Little weakling, you can return now. The danger has passed, and you can creep out of your hiding place."
The stick wagged side-to-side, and Paul said, "Sorry, he can’t. It’s a one-way trip—it only works when he’s badly scared."
"I see." For some reason the Hunter brightened a bit, even as he said, "So we must return to the Rest at the Gate… negate all the progress we’ve made so far…."
"Actually," George said, who had been kneeling there looking thoughtful, "I think you and I can fetch him a bit faster than that."
* ~Okay, Ringo hit a solid 27% psi on that power spike. Nowhere near his max, but lots better than what he’s shown previously. Looks like it’ll just be a matter of time before he starts really tapping into it, though at this rate it could be months or even years. I can’t believe how lucky I was to find him! Hah—I think the only thing I told Shag and Varx the truth about was Ringo. He’s totally natural, and he’s all mine.~
* "I popped into our old room," Ringo said around the campfire that evening. The four sat around a small square folding table on one side of the fire; the Hunter sat on the ground and glowered up at them across the cracking flames. For once he was silent, save for his chewing and sucking as he worked his mouth around a roast rabbit. Perhaps he was annoyed that George had become a stronger and faster horse to carry him across the miles to the portgate and Ringo’s rescue. He might also have been negatively affected by the sight of John with his cloak off, sitting backwards in his chair, busily eating sandwich after sandwich. And there was always the chance that he was irked by the many, many objects that George had seemingly drawn out of Paul’s sack—the table and chairs, bottles of beer and wine, sleeping bags, food, a tarp for the ground, plates and utensils, and everything else the four had bought to make the traveling life as tolerable as possible.
It had taken George about an hour and a half to make the trip back to the inn, and two hours to return—besides being awkwardly perched behind the Hunter on George’s back, Ringo wasn’t enough of a rider to maintain his seat through a rapid gait. Once they’d rejoined Paul and John, the Hunter insisted they continue to the next portgate with all possible haste, before night fell, so Ringo hadn’t had an opportunity to tell his story until now, when they were camped next to the second portgate, which, like the first, was in a large clearing in the forest about a mile off the main road.
"I was fallin’ diagonally when I popped, so when I got there I hit me head on the wall." Ringo took a long swig from his bottle of beer. "I was so disoriented and scared I couldn’t do anythin’ for a few minutes. When I finally calmed down I saw you lads lookin’ for me. What happened, anyway? All I know is somethin’ whizzed by me face and scared the shit out of me."
"Arrow," said Paul, and he gave Ringo a precis of what happened.
"And the Hunter saved us!" John added. "Him and his great black fire sword!" He looked over the fire at the Hunter, who had perked up upon hearing his name, and waved the last crust of his sandwich at the guide. "Go on, lad, show Ringo the sword, won’t you?"
"Blackfire is not to be unsheathed simply to satisfy your tourist curiosity," the Hunter said in lofty tones. "She has too much dignity for that. But I’m sure you’ll see her later in this journey." He pronounced sure with such, well, surety that the four wondered what he expected to happen.
HEY, Ringo thought at John as their hands lightly touched, I CAN’T SEE INTO THE SHEATH—IT’S PROTECTED.
Doesn’t surprise me, John thought back. Ah well, it probably doesn’t burn in there anyway.
"Ah, Blackfire…." The Hunter reached up and stroked the sword’s hilt (he was wearing it on his back again). "She and I have burned a path around this world. There is no sword more storied, or more feared. Together we have killed more men than the plague. The great and the humble have fallen before us. We have destroyed kings and beggars, powerful ancient wizards and insolent gutter whores. Though we prefer mighty souls. They are far more of a challenge."
"Something to be proud of for sure," George muttered, but the Hunter was wrapped up in his narration and entirely oblivious to the distaste radiating from the four. His hilt-stroking took on a distinctly sexual urgency as he began to fondle the hilt with both hands, running his fingers into the hilt’s nooks and crannies. And when he spoke again, it was at least partially to the sword. "Ah, you should have been there for the storming of High Crag. King Moliras had five hundred archers, a thousand foot-soldiers, and a dozen wizards to protect him…. Surely a sufficiency, eh?" The Hunter chuckled and shook his head. "The look on his face when I cut through the last of his royal guard and confronted him in the castle dungeon! And when his mistress threw herself upon Blackfire in a touching effort to trade her life for his? A brave and noble effort, but alas, a futile one… and a waste of a perfectly good pair of breasts. I’d have saved her, given the opportunity."
The Hunter continued in this vein for some time, even though he watched the four move as far away from him as possible; he simply crooned exclusively to Blackfire. The four tried to ignore him as they cleaned up and got ready for bed; or, at least, George, Ringo, and Paul tried to ignore him and clean up, while John continued to sit there and listen; he couldn’t help it, and anyway he was perversely fascinated by the stream of atrocities that this man was laying claim to. It was hard to imagine a single man, even with Blackfire, causing that much havoc; though as John thought about it, he glanced at Paul and wondered whether Paul was capable of an equivalent amount of carnage if he went crazy for some reason. Or himself, for that matter. Some of the things the Kansael whispered to him were a little… Well, they weren’t worth thinking about, because he wasn’t going to do them. And Paul wasn’t going to go crazy, either. Nor the others.
* ~Wonder what’s on John’s mind, he’s obviously thinking about something. Darn it, I really should’ve installed a telepathic scanner. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Geez, he sure turned out to be a washout, pun intended. The others all have some sort of mystery about their magic—heck, I designed Paul, and he’s been doing stuff outside the specs—but John’s is totally documented. That stupid Kansael is versatile, but it’s limited; it’ll never be able to go beyond its designed abilities. Unlike George’s ring, which is totally mysterious. It’s gone so far beyond what my scan said it was capable of that either the scan was way wrong or there’s some kind of serious heavy misdirection magic on that ring. And since there’s no way the scan could be wrong… that’s some powerful misdirection if I can’t even detect a vague hint of its presence. Gods, what is that ring? What is it? I can’t wait to find out!
~Geez, I haven’t been this excited about characters since I first gave Blackfire to Jim! THREE mysteries! How did I get so lucky?~
