Chapter 3

"In the Realm Again"

Diana landed on the ground with a startling bump. It seemed to hurt more than she remembered. Beside her, there were the noises of the others, and in spite of her previous fears, she breathed a sigh of relief. They were back. They had made it safely!

They had returned to the Realm.

It was the same place as last time; with the nearby hills and the dusty ground and small floating islands in the sky close beside them. It was the same!

She looked down at herself and shivered. She was back in her furry brown shorts and bikini, complete with furry boots, and then glanced round at the others.

Sheila, Bobby and Presto were back in their "normal" Realm clothes and didn't look any different than she expected. It was Joseph and Ray she was staring at.

For some reason, she had assumed that they would somehow just have taken the places of the Ranger and the Cavalier. But they hadn't.

Ray was dressed in a blue, loose robe, similar to Presto's, but shorter, like a tunic and wore blue trousers underneath. He had a light cream coloured shirt, and a powder blue cap. He was looking very, very surprised.

Joseph was dressed in neatly fitted suit of armour; but not the mail shirt and breastplate of Eric, it seemed more like the armour of Sir John, but it was a dark gunmetal colour, with a cross symbol etched on the front, like an X. He had a helmet with a long, red plume as well, tucked under his arm.

But he wasn't looking surprised. He was looking furious!

'What the hell is going on!' said Joseph, looking around in fear. 'Where are we?'

Before anyone could answer there was an ear-splitting shriek from their left.

'Tiamat!' whispered Presto.

'Uni!' said Bobby hopefully. He looked round.

They waited, but nothing happened.

'Where is she?' Bobby asked Sheila plaintively. 'Where's Uni?'

'I…I don't know, Bobby,' his sister replied. 'I don't know. It will be ok, we'll find her. Don't worry.'

'Do you know what's going on?' demanded Joseph, grabbing Sheila by the arm. He glared at her and she tried to take a step away from him.

'W-well, n-not really,' stammered Sheila. 'It's just that, I…I…'

She trailed off, looking at the others for support.

Then there was another noise behind them, and they all turned.

But instead of the small white unicorn Diana had been expecting, there was a small, squat, bronzed-coloured dragon was scuttling across the ground. It wasn't watching where it was going and slammed straight into Bobby's legs.

For a moment it looked round confused, then it crouched down on the ground and hissed at him, its bright green eyes glowing.

'What the hell…!' gasped Joseph. 'That's a… that's a…'

'That's a bronze dragon,' finished Presto, clearly trying to be helpful.

But Joseph was not pleased.

'What is going on!' he demanded. 'Where are we? What's happened?'

'Fear not, children!' said a voice to their right.

Again, Diana turned, feeling more confused and afraid with every passing moment. Though she had recognised the voice, it was not the one she'd expected. It wasn't Dungeonmaster, it was…

'Zandora!' she said. 'What are you doing here?'

The little sorceress was standing just beside them, dressed just as Diana remembered (perhaps a bit more shabby, though). At her side was the Box.

'Yes, child, I am the Sorceress, Zandora! You know me?' asked the small woman in confusion. 'How?'

'Yeah,' said Joseph. 'How? I want a damn answer!'

He was glaring at Diana in fury, and she had never seen him like that before.

'It's really, really difficult to explain,' she said.

'So you do know!'

'Well… sort of, it's just…' She looked up into his perfect blue eyes, hoping that his anger would subside. She had no idea how to explain. Fortunately, Presto can to her rescue.

'Where's Dungeonmaster?' asked Presto, looking intently at the Sorceress. 'What's happened here?'

The old woman looked sadly to the ground.

'Dungeonmaster has been gone for years now,' she said. 'I tried to carry on and continue his work, but no one can replace him. How do you know of these things?'

'It's sort of difficult to explain,' Presto replied.

She nodded, and looked at him keenly, then at Bobby, Sheila and finally Diana herself. The look seemed to contain more than just an exchange of glances, and Diana shivered. Zandora was a sorceress, after all. Maybe she could tell that they were different, maybe she could tell what had happened to them.

'I sense magic about you,' she said at last. 'Strange, dangerous magic. I am unsure what to do. And yet… yet there is something that I must do. For your own protection.'

She opened the Box by her side, inside were their glowing weapons.

'There are few weapons left free of Evil's power. These six have been kept hidden for just this event.'

The kids looked at each other suspiciously as Zandora handed the weapons out.

'This is for you, Magician,' she said the Presto, handing him the Hat. 'And this is for you, Thief.' She gave the Cloak to Sheila. Then she handed the Javelin to Diana calling her "Acrobat" and the Club to Bobby, calling him "Barbarian".

Then Zandora turned to Joseph and Ray.

'These are for you,' she said. 'Paladin, and Sage.'

To Joseph she handed a beautiful curved sword, with a gilt handle which he took with very little enthusiasm. Zandora gave Ray a short wooden Staff, about a foot long with a bright red jewel fixed in the top. He looked at it, and gave it a little shake. The gemstone glowed, but nothing happened.

'How do we get home?' asked Joseph. 'Are we stuck here forever until we die?'

'There are few portals back to your own world,' said Zandora sadly. 'But you will be able to try to use them.'

'But…' said Ray, prompting the old woman. 'There, is a "but", right? There has to be!'

Zandora nodded slowly as she reached down to pet the little Bronze Dragon that was still sitting on the ground. This time it didn't hiss, but made a twanging-kind of sound.

'The Arch-Mage called Venger, knows of your arrival. He is a great Evil in our world, and he will stop at nothing to get these remaining weapons.'

'Why give then to us?' asked Ray suspiciously. 'Why not just keep them hidden?'

'You will need them, Sage, to survive!'

'That's all very well,' said Joseph, curtly. 'But what I want to know is why you all seem to know what's going on and I don't!' He glared round at the group with a deep frown. 'I want some answers!'

'Well, don't look at me!' said Ray. 'I've no idea what's going on. But getting angry about it isn't going to help!'

'She's gone!' said Presto suddenly. 'Jeez, just like the old man!'

Everyone turned to the place where Zandora had just been, but she had gone. There was nothing there but dust and the little Bronze dragon, sitting, waiting for something else to happen. It hissed at them again, but with no malice. Carefully, Sheila knelt down to pet it, as Zandora had done, and it started making that funny noise again.

As she watched the creature, Diana sensed someone staring at her. She knew who it was, but she didn't know what to say.

Joseph took hold of her arm. She looked up at him, her blood running cold at the sight of so much confusion and fury in his pale blue eyes. The only thing she could think of to say was the truth.

'This has happened to us before… in a sort of… different… world…' It sounded ridiculous, now she said it out loud. 'Our world is the mostly the same… just different in the details.'

'A different world…?' repeated Joseph incredulously.

'Yes,' chipped in Presto, in a serious tone. 'But something went wrong in our world, two of our friends were taken from it, and came here. We have to get them back. And the only way to do it was to go through your world. At least, I think that's right. Dungeonmaster was pretty vague on the…'

'But,' interrupted Joseph, 'that would mean you knew what was going to happen to us all, on the ride.' He wasn't looking at the Magician, but straight at Diana. 'You knew! You knew what was going to happen and you still let us all come here?'

'Yes,' she said, ashamed that her voice was faltering. But she lifted her head up proudly. 'Yes I did. Because I had to, we all had to.'

'Then why didn't you tell us?' he growled. 'We had a right to know! It was our choice too! You forced us to come here!'

'And you would have believed me, if I'd told you? You'd have thought I was mad!'

The Paladin made no reply for a long time.

'I trusted you, Diana,' he said at last. 'I thought that we had a good thing going. Why couldn't you have trusted me? All this, it's just too much, it's too…'

The words petered out. For a few moments no one spoke, and Joseph stared at the ground, shaking. Then he turned away and started to walk.

'It's not like that!' she called after him. 'Joseph, please!'

But the Paladin kept on walking.

Sheila took her arm, stopping her from following.

'Let him go, just for a while,' she said. 'It must seem like a crazy conspiracy, or something. Give him some time.'

there was a short silence.

'You know, I'm not exactly pleased, either!' said Ray from beside Presto.

The Magician turned to him looking incredibly embarrassed. Ray was holding his new Staff in one hand, but the other hand was planted firmly on his hips, and he was frowning.

'I'm sorry, Ray,' he said. 'I… don't know what I should say.'

'It's ok,' replied the Sage with a sigh. 'Like I said, getting angry about it isn't going to help!'

'I think,' said Presto slowly, 'that if we can get our friends back to through the Crystal of Kronos, then this should all sort itself out. You'll go back home, and forget any of this ever happened.'

'That's what I like to hear!' he said. 'You have a plan!'

'I wouldn't really go as far as calling it a fully-fledged plan. More of a theory, or hypothesis.'

'Or a guess?' Ray asked.

Presto nodded ruefully.

'A guess is better than nothing,' said Ray. 'I think.'

In the silence that followed Diana looked around at the hills and floating islands that were close by, remembering how she had felt the first time this had all happened. Inevitably, her gaze was draw to the way Joseph had walked off.

'I think should go and find him,' she said at last. 'We need to get moving. Who knows what's going to appear! And we have to try and find Eric and Hank.'

Without waiting for a reply, she jogged off over the ridge, following the dusty track as it wound upwards, away from the others.

She wasn't sure how far Joseph would have gone, and for a while she was worried that he would have just kept on walking, not caring about where he went or how far from the others he had gone. But within a minute she saw him, standing at the base of a small hill, sitting on the ground. His new Sword was pointing out in front on him, the handle in his hand, as if he was judging the weight of it.

He looked up as she approached, but did not acknowledge her.

A few feet away from him, she stopped.

'Hi,' she said.

The Paladin glared at her and didn't reply.

'Please, Joseph,' she said. 'Please give me a chance. To explain.'

'You can explain?'

'Well… no, not really explain, I suppose.'

Joseph looked down to his Sword and took a long, deep breath.

'What's going on?' he asked.

Diana told him what she could about her Realm, and what had happened, and also Presto's theory that they would all go back to the way it was supposed to be after they found Hank and Eric.

Joseph listened without comment, and after she had stopped there was another silence.

'So, what about these two friends?' He leaned forward. 'You've risked so much for them, not only yourselves but me, and Ray, as well. Why does it mean so much to you?'

How was she ever going to explain her relationship to Hank and Eric? Complicated didn't even begin to cover it! But she looked up at him.

'I care about them,' she said quietly. 'They are my friends.'

'That's all?'

'Yes. That's all.'

But saying the words didn't feel quite right. She thought it was true, she knew it was true, so why did it feel like she was telling him a lie?

There were footsteps behind them and the both turned, weapons at the ready. Joseph swept the Sword round in a graceful arc, and held it as steady as a rock. It surprised her that he knew what to do, and that it came so naturally to him.

The footsteps suddenly stopped and Sheila appeared out from under the Cloak.

'Sorry to interrupt,' she said. 'You've been ages and we were worried.'

'Everything is ok,' said Diana, taking Joseph's arm.

'We'll have to go,' the Thief continued. 'Ray's getting anxious. He kept going on and on about open ground and sitting targets. And if I didn't know better, I would say that he was enjoying himself!'

There was a moment of calm, as Diana and Sheila smiled at the joke. Then someone else spoke.

'He was right to be worried,' said a familiar voice behind them.

Diana whipped round as did Sheila at the same time, and the Acrobat heard her friend's gasp of astonishment.

Though she knew she should have been wondering how they had managed to creep up on them, all the sensible questions and thoughts were swept away.

There were two young men each seated on horseback, looking down regally at the three of them. The Acrobat recognised them, in spite of their different clothes and hairstyles. And when Diana looked up into their faces and her heart missed a beat.

Eric and Hank were right in front of her.