Chapter Thirteen
The Choice
"The Realm of what?" Diana asked, still trying to catch her breath. Her heart was thumping in her chest and her muscles were twitching slightly from the unused adrenaline that was still rushing through her system. Despite that, she was determined to remain calm and collected. She knew that nothing would be gained by losing her cool right now.
"I know you all have many questions," the old man said, "but you have a decision to make first and before you do that, we must get away from this cliff. Venger and Tiamat have distracted one another for now, but they won't both stay away for long. We must not be here when either one of them returns."
"I can agree to that last part," Eric said. Diana noticed that he was pale and visibly trembling; these were most likely symptoms of the same adrenaline rush that Diana was feeling. "Look, Pops," he continued shakily, "I don't know who you are or how we got here, but if you could just send us back home, I think we'd all really appreciate it."
"I am afraid that isn't possible right now, Cavalier," the old man responded with regret in his voice. "Now, as I said-"
"No!" Eric shouted, cutting him off. "Listen, we have been nearly smashed in a roller coaster accident, barbecued by a dragon and blasted into bits by some lunatic in a Satanic Liberace costume. I am not staying here another minute!"
Diana quickly walked over and took one of his hands in both of hers. "Eric," she said soothingly, "I think Dungeon Master here wants to help us. He did give us these weapons to fight the dragon, after all. If he says we need to get away from here, then let's listen to him for now. We can talk about getting home later."
Eric turned to Diana, his face still pale. He opened his mouth as if he were going to object, but then seemed to think better of it. He closed his mouth and nodded silently in agreement.
"Well, spoken, Acrobat," Dungeon Master said. "Now, if you are all ready..." He raised his arms above his head and everything flickered briefly for a moment. There was a buzzing sound in Diana's ears and suddenly they were somewhere else. A short burst of vertigo caused her to sway a bit and she noticed the others, save Dungeon Master, doing the same. She regained her balance and looked around.
They were on top of another cliff with their backs to a dark forest. Far below them stretched a rocky plain and in the distance stood another series of cliffs. To Diana's astonishment, she saw three suns low in the sky, the first of which was just starting to set below the line of that distant cliff. In all of the excitement of their arrival here, she hadn't taken the time to examine the sky. "There are three suns here?" she asked.
"Actually, there are four," Dungeon Master replied. "The other one has already fallen below the horizon."
Diana swallowed. If there had been any hope left that they were somehow still in their own world, the vision of multiple setting suns extinguished it.
"Is that where we just were?" Hank asked, pointing to the cliffs on the horizon.
"Your eyes are quite good, Ranger. Yes, that is where we were. And now we are here. We are not totally safe, but we should have fair warning should either Tiamat or Venger decide to come looking for us."
"Dungeon Master," Diana said, still looking across the impossible distance they had just crossed in the blink of an eye, "where are we? I mean, I know you called this The Realm of Dungeons and Dragons, but where is that? We can't possibly be on Earth anymore, can we?"
"No, child," Dungeon Master replied quietly. "Your home world is far from here."
Diana turned to look at him. His eyes were compassionate and also sad. "Just how far away is it?" she asked, unsure she really wanted to know.
"The answer would have no meaning for you," he replied. He looked to the others then as he continued to speak, "I know that this is difficult for all of you. You have been given but the smallest glimpse of the true enormity of all that is. You have traveled through distances and in directions that would be incomprehensible to the brightest minds of your world. All of you have been brought to this world which, as you have already noticed, is quite dissimilar to your own. However, I have good news." He smiled then. "You are not without a friend. My role is to aid and guide you as necessary as you search for a way back to your own world."
"So there is a way back home?" Hank asked.
"There are many ways, Ranger, but none of them will be easy to find and you will face many dangers and trials in the searching. That is why you need to make your first decision now. If you wish to survive here and make it home safely, you must not allow dissension and discord to divide you. Only together can you overcome the evils of this world and in order to function together, you are going to need a leader."
"A leader?" Eric asked. "Who is going to lead us? You?"
"Nay, Cavalier. As I have already said, I am only a guide. You must chose from among yourselves the one who will lead you."
Diana looked at each of her friends. If you wish to survive, Dungeon master had said. These five people meant more to her than anyone else in the world outside of her own immediate family and the possibility that she might lose one of them was something she couldn't even bring herself to contemplate. If they needed a leader to get them out of here safely, then there was really only one choice. "I nominate Hank," she said.
Hank looked over at her, clearly startled. "Uh, Diana-" he began, but he wasn't able to get any further.
"I second that," Sheila said.
"Yeah, me too," said Bobby.
Presto and Eric joined in with their agreement as well and Hank looked like an animal caught in a trap. "Look, guys," he said, "it's not that I don't appreciate this, but I'm not sure I'm really the best choice."
"Maybe not," said Dungeon Master, "but you are their choice, Ranger. However, before you decide whether or not to accept this honor, it is most important that you and I discuss some things. Come walk with me." Hank looked uncertain as he joined Dungeon Master's side. "We will be back shortly," the small man said to the others. He turned then and began walking toward the forest. Hank looked back at his friends, shrugged and followed the little man into the trees.
"Do you think we can trust this guy?" Presto asked, sitting on the ground.
"No way," Eric said, joining him awkwardly. He was apparently still unused to moving around in his armor. "I don't trust him at all."
Sheila, Diana, Bobby and the baby unicorn joined the two boys on the ground, forming a small semi-circle that allowed them all to keep an eye on the woods where Hank had gone with the man who called himself Dungeon Master.
"I don't know," Sheila replied. "He did help us fight that dragon thing and he seems nice."
"Maybe," Eric said, only slightly mollified, "but he sure isn't telling us everything and I want to know why not." He paused then to look at the shield that he had placed on the ground. "Still, I have to admit that this did come in handy."
"Speaking of your shield," Diana said, "what did Dungeon Master give the rest of you? I was so busy trying not to get eaten by that dragon that I didn't see what everyone got."
"I got this hat," Presto said, showing off a green, cone-shaped cloth hat. "I pulled those ropes out of it that we used to climb to the top of the cliff. I'm not sure exactly how I did that though."
"Well, it worked, Presto," Sheila said. "He gave me this," she continued, pulling at the purple hooded cape she was wearing.
"He gave you a cape?" Eric asked. "What kind of weapon is that?"
"It's not a weapon exactly," Sheila said. "Watch." She pulled the hood up over her head and she immediately vanished.
The others jumped up in surprise and looked around. "Where'd she go?" Eric asked, looking around.
"I'm right here, guys," came Sheila's reply from where she had been sitting. "It makes me invisible, that's all." She reappeared then as she pulled the hood back off her head.
The others sat back down, looking at Sheila in admiration. "'That's all'?" Diana said wonderingly. "Sheila, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen."
"Yeah," Bobby said. "It's awesome! All I got was this club."
"Does it do anything?" Presto asked.
"I don't know. It glows when I tap it against stuff." Bobby stood up and tapped the club once on the ground. The club began glowing with an intense yellow light.
"Pretty useful as a flashlight, I guess," Eric said.
"Wait a minute," Diana said. "Bobby, have you used the club on anything yet?"
"No, I haven't had the chance. Why?"
"Go try it on that rock over there," she said, pointing to a boulder a few yards away that was about waist-high on Bobby. "Just be careful. You don't want to hurt your arms when you hit it."
Bobby shrugged and walked over the the stone. He spread his legs wide, raised the still-glowing club above his head and brought it down hard. The effect was spectacular. Not only did the club shatter the boulder into thousands of tiny pebbles which flew out in all directions, but it caused the very ground to quake. The friends except for Bobby were knocked over and were left hugging the ground as they waited for the quake to subside. After a few moments, the dust cleared and the shaking ceased. Bobby was staring at the others with an awed expression on his face. "Are you guys OK?" he asked quietly.
Diana looked at her friends. Each of them was lying face down, clutching at the sparse ground with both hands. Even the baby unicorn was on its belly with all four legs sprawled out in different directions. They all wore similar expressions of stunned amazement, but they looked otherwise unharmed. "I think we're all OK." she said. She looked back at the younger boy. "Wow," she continued, "that's some flashlight, Bobby." She unclenched her fingers from the death grip that they had on the grass and sat back up, helping the unicorn to its feet. The others also regained their former positions as Bobby rejoined their little circle, staring at his club in wonder.
"Uh, Bobby," Eric said. "Do me a favor. Give us a warning before you use that thing again. I'm not sure I can take that kind of surprise very often." Then he looked over his shoulder into the woods. "I wonder if Hank and the old man are OK."
"I get the impression that Dungeon Master can take care of himself," Presto said. "And since Hank's with him, I guess he should be OK, too." He looked at Diana. "We all saw Eric's shield at the top of the cliff," he said. "We know what it does. What did Dungeon Master give you?"
Diana pulled the small green rod off of her belt and held it out in her hand for the others to see. In its current state, it was about eight inches long. As it sat in her palm, it began to glow with a serene, green light.
"I'd say that seemed pretty useless," said Eric, "except that Bobby's stick over there can apparently shatter boulders and cause earthquakes. Let me guess; your stick shoots cannonballs, right?"
"No, it does this." Diana stood up and concentrated on the rod. It suddenly extended to about ten feet in length in her hands. She backed away from the others and turned so that she had plenty of space. She began running and brought the pole down, vaulting herself into the air.
The first time Diana had done this, she was fleeing from the dragon Tiamat. She hadn't really put any thought into what she was doing, she had merely acted on instinct when the pole had appeared in her hand and vaulted away from the danger and she really had no memory of what exactly she had done or how she had done it. This time though, it was a little different. For one thing, she was now very aware of what was going on. For another, she had put a little more power into her vault than she had meant to and it appeared that the javelin itself had the ability to add to her own power. Diana found herself hurtling a good twenty feet above the ground and now she had to concentrate on how to land without breaking her legs. Remarkably, though she had only dabbled in gymnastics a little back home and had never vaulted before, she found that she knew exactly what to do. She executed a flawless rotation and her descent actually slowed to a safe landing speed. She suspected that this was also due to help from the javelin. Unfortunately, she realized with terror that she had vaulted herself several feet beyond the edge of the cliff and there was no way for her to get back to safe ground. She opened her mouth to scream as she was about to fall below the edge of the cliff top when she was suddenly enveloped by a yellow glow. Her descent slowed to a stop and then reversed direction as she floated up over the edge of the cliff and landed safely on her feet in front of Hank and Dungeon Master, whose hand was also glowing with the same yellow light. As the glow from Diana and Dungeon Master's hand faded, the others were running up to join the three near the cliff edge. "I see you have been practicing, young Acrobat," Dungeon Master said. "Perhaps you should continue your studies somewhere a bit safer, hmm?"
Diana couldn't have agreed more.
The seven of them were at the edge of the woods, seated around a small campfire. The last of this world's suns was sitting just above the horizon and the evening sky was aflame with oranges, reds and yellows. "We must finish our discussion quickly," Dungeon Master said, "once the last of the suns sets, the fire will need to be extinguished and you will need to move into the woods in order to keep your position secret from Tiamat and Venger. The Ranger and I have spoken and he has agreed to be your leader if you will have him."
Diana looked at Hank. He was seated cross-legged and was staring into the fire, his face a mystery as the reflection of the low flames danced and flickered in his eyes. She began to realize then what must have already occurred to Hank: he was about to take upon himself an immense burden and responsibility. In an unfamiliar and dangerous world, Hank would be responsible for protecting their very lives. It was an unenviable task.
"You have all suggested that Hank be your leader," Dungeon Master was saying, "but he has yet to make his own suggestion and I believe that he would like to do so now."
Hank looked from the fire to Diana. Their eyes met for a moment and then he looked to the others. "I am honored," he began, "that you all have put so much faith in me. However, I think we should also consider Diana, who would make just as good, if not better, leader than me. She is really smart, honest and hard-working. We've all known her for a long time and I'd have no problem trusting her with my life."
By now the others were all looking at Diana, whose mouth had suddenly gone very dry. "I...I'm touched," she said. "Thank you, Hank," she concluded simply.
"The night comes quickly," Dungeon Master said. "Acrobat, you and I do not have the time right now for the conversation that the Ranger and I had earlier. Should your companions choose you, we will have that conversation before you accept."
"I understand," Diana said.
"Then let us choose." The Dungeon Master's right hand was once again enveloped in the now familiar yellow glow. Once it had faded, twelve pebbles were left on his palm. Six of them were yellow and six of them were blue. "Magician," he said, holding out his left hand and looking up to Presto's hat, "if I may?"
Presto removed his hat and gave it to the little man who handed the pebbles in his hand to Hank, who was sitting to his immediate right. "Each of you take one pebble of each color," he said. "If you wish for Hank to be your leader, place a blue pebble in the hat. If you choose Diana, place a yellow one. Once made, the choice is final for the second pebble will vanish after you place the first in the hat. He stood then and gestured for the others to follow suit. "Please form a line behind the Ranger," he said. They did so. Dungeon Master looked expectantly at Hank as he dropped a pebble into the hat and then moved around the fire and sat down. They all did the same and moments later, Diana was sitting down once more upon the ground. "Let us see whom you have chosen," Dungeon Master said, emptying the contents of the hat upon the ground. Diana was not at all surprised by what she saw: five blue pebbles and one yellow.
"Thanks for your vote, Hank," she said with a smile. He looked into her eyes and answered with a small smile of his own.
"It is done," Dungeon Master said. "And now I believe the Ranger has some things to say to you."
Hank took a deep breath and got to his feet. The sky was nearly completely dark and the fire had mostly burned to embers which cast a reddish-orange glow upon his face. "Again," he said, "thanks for your confidence in me." Then a slightly pained expression appeared on his face and he shifted uncomfortably. "This next part isn't easy for me," he continued, "but Dungeon Master says it's important and I guess he's probably right." He paused, looking into the embers as if putting his thoughts in order. When he spoke again, he did so without looking at the others, keeping his eyes on the dying fire instead. "I'll always want input and advice from each of you and I'll ask for it when making decisions." He paused for a moment and swallowed. "However, there will be times when we discuss things, when everyone has spoken his or her mind and we still have a disagreement over what we should do. Some of us will think one way and the rest of us another. There will be other times when decisions have to be made quickly without any discussion at all. In those kinds of circumstances, I'll be the one who needs to make a choice and I'll have to be able to do that knowing that we'll act as one, without there being any dissension in the group. I need to know that once I've made a decision, you'll follow me, even when you disagree with my decision or don't understand it." He looked away from the dying fire and gazed at his friends, taking in a deep breath as he did so. "I need to you to take an oath of loyalty to me," he said.
Diana had guessed where Hank was going and she immediately understood how difficult this request was for him. By making it, he was fundamentally changing the relationship he had with each of them. He would no longer just be their friend. This was asking for something else entirely: for a new and profound kind of commitment to him that recognized his new authority and power over them. They would still be friends, but not in the same way as before and this request was costing Hank far more than it would cost the others. The rest would still have equals in the group; he would be alone. She looked at the others. They were all looking at Hank with mixed expressions. Diana reacted with little surprise when Bobby was the first to stand. He walked around the fire, knelt before Hank and bowed his head.
"I swear to follow you to the ends of this world and any other we come to until we return home," he said in his young voice.
Sheila stood, walked over and knelt next to her brother. "I swear to follow you to the ends of this world and any other we come to until we return home," she said, repeating Bobby's pledge word for word.
Diana stood next and noticed that Eric and Presto had also stood at the same time. As one group, the three walked over to Hank, knelt before their friend and likewise repeated the pledge, "I swear to follow you to the ends of this world and any other we come to until we return home."
"Stand up," Hank said, his voice sounding choked. The five friends stood and Diana saw that his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "Thank you," he continued, "I...I don't know what to say."
"Well," Eric said, slapping Hank on the back, "that's going to make it harder to follow your orders."
Hank laughed at that and wiped at his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Thanks again, guys. I mean it and I'll do everything I can to get us all home safely." He took a deep breath before continuing, "I do have a couple more things to take care of before we move on. Diana," he turned and looked the tall girl in the eye. "I would like you to be my second-in-command. I may rely on you for advice quite a bit and if I'm not around or if I'm incapacitated or...or something like that, then you are in charge. It will be your duty to get everyone safely home. Do you agree?"
Diana nodded gravely. "Yes," she said.
"Thank you," Hank said. "And will the rest of you follow Diana's lead the same as you would follow mine?"
The others all nodded. "Good," Hank said. "After Diana, the chain of command will continue down by age. That means Eric, then Sheila, Presto and finally Bobby. Does anyone have any objection to that?"
Nobody did. Hank turned to Dungeon Master. "I think that's about it," he said. "Was there anything you needed to add?"
"No, Ranger," the little man replied. "You have done very well. And now it is time to leave this place."
He waved one hand over the hot embers. The red glow and the heat they had been producing vanished, plunging the group into almost total darkness on this moonless night. A warm red glow then appeared a few feet off the ground in front of Diana and she realized that Dungeon Master had somehow transported the light and heat from the embers into his right hand, which he now held aloft. "In the woods there is a cave where we can rest for the night," he continued. "The entrance is well hidden and we should be undisturbed. Please follow me." The little man turned and entered the dark woods. With Hank in the lead, the companions followed.