Mr. Ferguson! Where are you off to in such a hurry?” The man grinned, mimicking the principle’s voice. “This is not the way to the principal’s office.”

Eddie gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as several goblins stood by the mystery man. Perhaps this was the sorcerer his mother was talking about. Eddie was drenched in his own sweat. He could not tell if it was from the heat waves caused by the sun rays or his own fear. They mystery man and goblins approached. Eddie backed up as much as he could toward the ledge of the rooftop.

“Impressive. You know how to avoid my eyes. You are truly her son. Now be a good boy and remain put.”

The sorcerer motioned the goblin to restrain the boy. Eddie would have none of it as much as he could under his own power. He cursed himself for discarding the broomstick in the janitor’s room. The first goblin, about his height, reached out and tugged on Eddie’s shirt. Eddie sent flurries of punches. Some missed and some landed, but it had no effect. Another goblin slid in behind and lift him off his feet.

“Let me go!” Eddie screamed for his life. “What do you want with me?”

“You have something I want that resides inside of you. Your father sealed it there.”

Eddie continued to scream and attempted to wiggle his way free.

“If you cooperate with me, I promise no harm will come to you. Think about how sad your mother would be if you depart into the afterlife.”

“Unfortunately, today is not the day. The boy’s mother shall not weep nor will the boy be yours.”

The retort was the voice of an elderly man. Quickly, the chirping of a hundred birds followed the man’s proclamation. Out of the blue, a score of ravens merged together and a man materialized from it. Eddie stopped thrashing about and tried to twist his head in the direction of the elderly man’s raspy voice. The swarm of ravens blocked Eddie’s view as he was instantly dropped by the goblins. Unlike with Brad and his cohorts, the ravens were relentless in their assault, gouging and pecking out goblins’ eyes, and their talons tore flesh off of the goblins’ bodies like a school of piranhas.

Eddie recognized the elderly man as the old man he had seen earlier today at the basketball court. His mind could not process all that was transpiring as he got the wind knocked out of him when the man snaked his arm around Eddie’s torso and vaulted off the rooftop, his backpack slipping off. A nauseating sensation washed over him as they approached their touched down. The one-eyed man waved his staff just before they would have fatally crashed into the ground.

Violent currents of wind magically came out of nowhere and halted their descent. They were floating in mid-air, Eddie thought. It didn’t take Eddie too long to realize that the ancient wizard was standing on a floating, bobbing solid surface. Before Eddie could analyze more of his surroundings, a pair of tender arms plucked him out of the old man’s arms and held him in a passionate hug. It was his mother, Cassandra Ferguson.

“Mom!” Eddie exclaimed.

“Thank the heavens that you are alright!” She smiled. “Be strong, my son.”

“It's best that we keep the pleasantries for later. Hold on tight!”

Cars were tossed around like beach balls colliding into structures and other vehicles, creating a chain reaction of combustion as an inferno lit the skies and vapors from the smoke permeated the air. Eddie could hardly believe his eyes and felt like he was dreaming. Eddie found himself standing with his mother and then on the back of a colossal bird. Its body was massive and its wingspan had to be around fifty meters wide. This had to be a dream, he thought. First goblins and a demented sorcerer, now giant birds. Eddie easily identified the species as he pointed at its head. “It’s a eagle.”

“An eagle,” she corrected.

“Not just any eagle,” the ancient wizard retorted, very pleased with himself. “The bald eagle, and it’s your country’s emblem on its seal along with being the national animal of the United States of America.”

“Wooo! That’s super cool!” Eddie exclaimed. “And who the heck are you?”

His rude demeanor toward the ancient wizard earned him a slap on the back of his head.

“Is that the way you talk to your elders! Show some respect,” his mother snarled while Eddie rubbed his head to relieve him of the throbbing pain.

The wizard smiled, “Nah. This boy is just like his father.” He laughed, “I have been called Woden the Wanderer for long as I can recall!” Woden took his eyes off of Eddie. “Save the chit-chat for later! We have company! ”

Woden pulled a crystal ball from his robes. The ball lit up like a strobe light. The images of monstrous winged creatures appeared vividly. To Eddie, it was like looking through a zoomed-in telescope or a pair of binoculars. “Blasted imps,” said Woden.”

“Imps!” Eddie exclaimed. “Those ugly looking demon fairies? They looked like flying goblins to me,” he fumed.

“They are related to the goblin race. Some believe that imps are the fallen state of goblins just as dark elves are the fallen state of the elves.”

“How’s that possible? These imps should have perished under direct contact with sunlight,” Cassandra said.

“An enchanted spell of demonic shroud guards their skin, invisible to the naked eye. In the process, sunlight is absorbed by the shroud. I only know of a few dark elves in the universe who use this spell to make themselves immune to sunlight. The shroud can only be shredded by high concentrations of holy light. I will need time to weave the spell. Don’t let them interrupt my incantation or all hope will be lost.”

“Eddie!” She beckoned. “Take this and shoot them down when they come into range.”

Eddie received a cold steel recurve bow from his mother. This was not his usual plastic traditional bow and arrow that came with a set of twelve arrows that had orange rubber head plungers for safety.

Cassandra fastened the bow’s straps around Eddie’s lap, with a latex black quiver full of arrows mounted perfectly in place on his back. Eddie saw that the school was not in sight any longer. Observing his surroundings, he saw no signs of human activity. As they got onto the highway, a significant number of cars were stalled on the highway. The vehicles had their ignitions still on. The drivers and passengers appeared to be dead at first glance. The first thought that crossed his mind was that all this was caused by a sleeping bomb. However, Cassandra said that they were put to sleep by Woden's slumbering spell.

“They’re coming!” Eddie gritted.

He was starting to abhor the goblin race even as his fear of them was diminishing ever rapidly. His muscles were tense. He was eager to shoot moving targets. This would be his first time shooting live targets, especially those that could bring him harm. He pulled out an arrow and examined its pointy tip. He was awestruck. This was the real deal. He never thought he would have the privilege to shoot such arrows. He watched his mother pull out her two-handed longsword from the leather knapsack. He should have known magic was at work. The longsword could not physically fit in the knapsack.

He had little time to ponder and reflect on that as the swarm of imps was within a hundred fifty meters from the giant bald eagle, gaining speed very rapidly. Fortunately, the wind was to Eddie’s back, making archery the conditions more amenable to long-range shooting. The imps appeared within his range, but the riders remained too puny of a target for him to hit at one hundred fifty meters. In his practice sessions Eddie nocked an arrow, drew back, and released in one motion. Once an arrow had been drawn back, it was essential that an archer not withhold the arrow for too long. Too much tension on the elbow would make the arrow deficient and inaccurate when it was released and sometimes the archer was prone to accidents.

The tension on the bowstring was so intense that Eddie struggled to draw back the arrow, making progress only half-way. He had no confidence in his strength that he could shoot the arrow at the bow’s full strength. The horde advanced closer in his range so that Eddie could put an arrow into the rider. The distance was challenging. Eddie inhaled as he barely was able to draw back the arrow. The bowstring slipped from his grip. The sound of a bowstring being released drew Cassandra’s attention as she watched the arrow go sailing out of sight.

Eddie’s target shrieked in pain and spun out of control. From Eddie’s vantage, he could not make out the details other than the creature crumbled into dust. The swarm of imps became disgruntled and baffled as to why their comrade was reduced to powder. A few more arrows then found their mark slamming into hunks of imp flesh. The stricken imps crumbled to pebbles. With his current archery skills and talent, he was having a field day, shooting imps with no difficulty. The imps were bunched so tightly in formation that even if he missed his intended target, the arrow would bury itself into the next target.

The imps had noticed this, so the leader raised its long, pointy index finger above its head, signaling the entire swarm. They dispersed and widened the attack formation so it would make using rapid fire to hit every target in one cycle of firing nearly impossible. Eddie was talented enough to fire a maximum of five arrows rapidly in one 3.5 second cycle before adjusting his aim to take a different projected path. It took him nearly double the amount to release a volley of five arrows, obviously due to the nature of the tension during each drawback.

As the imps drew nearer, the speed of the arrows and their accuracy increased with apace. However, the whimpering imps were massive in their numbers. There were not enough arrows to slay all of them and he, Cassandra, and Woden would be overrun by the horde, long before he could shoot all of them. Cassandra shouted out from behind, telling Eddie to not let any of the imps touch him or so much as breath on his skin. They had the magical powers to petrified their prey and adversaries into stone. Trepidation ran like a cold chill down his spinal cord. His stomach ached and his concentration nearly broke.

“Good boy!” She patted his head. “You made them spread out the way I like it. Hold your fire and take shelter behind me. It will get a little bumpy for a moment.”

Cassandra whistled harmonically. The giant bald eagle spun his head, staring at them with his giant, intimidating golden eyes. It stopped flapping as it prepped itself to make landfall. The eagle’s momentum shifted in the opposite direction. It grew ever stronger and Eddie lost his footing. He quickly reached out with his free arm and clung desperately to his mother’s leg. He knew if he let go, he would fall to his death. Cassandra gathered him to his feet and he stood behind her, snaking his arms around her waist for leverage. Eddie could not fathom how these two adults remained glued in position without so much as a flinch.

Cassandra made short work of the first imp, cutting diagonally across its midsection, severing it in half, although it was not a gruesome scene, as most would expect. The imps turned to stone and dispersed into dust, looking like dry clay. As she expected, their insides and blood was not shielded from the enchanted shroud so that even one tiny nip anywhere on their bodies would be fatal. The bald eagle decreased its forward motion. It was pulled further back of the horde. The imps roared in anger as they were tricked and their mystical breath attack was interrupted. The southwest winds forced them to fly around in a half-circle to pursue the bald eagle for a second attempt.

This time, they flew back into their original formation. Cassandra’s trick and tactics wouldn’t work a second time. The flight became stable once again and Eddie no longer needed to cling to his mother. Eddie grew concerned as the horde completed the pass around and positioned themselves at the stern. Eddie reached for his quiver and nocked another arrow. He was interrupted by his mother as she held his right arm from drawing back the bow string. Eddie looked at her with confusion.

“Save your arrows. There is nothing we can do. Our fate is now in the hands of Mr. Woden.”

“Someone called for an exterminator!”

Woden was holding the All-Seeing crystal ball, levitating above the palm of his hand. It was very shiny and radiant. Eddie had to shield his eye from the searing rays of holy light.

“What the heck is that?” Eddie pointed ahead.

The imps were humming in unison. A large cloud of pixie dust was oozing out from within the horde. Woden muttered a Norse curse word. Even Cassandra suddenly became pale. They could feel the massive accumulation of mana energy being manifested into a magical attack. Pixie dust converted into black mist.

“How clever of them. They mean to attack us with a long-range attack,” she said.

“Stone Breath, that’s what we wizards called this magic ability. It literally petrifies almost anything that it comes into contact with,” Woden snarled. “Stay back! Do not pass me or you’ll be blinded by the holy, divine rays of the Unsighted Light.”

Darkness from the wicked mists began to envelope them. In moments, they would be petrified. Eddie’s heart raced. He dared not stare at the demise that was about to swallow him and the party into an eternal abyss. Woden roared. Streaks of sun rays lashed out like particle beams and collided with the mist. The imps and their magical, combined Stone Breath were being repelled and push back. Screams of agony and suffering made Eddie cringe as the enchanted shrouds of the shadow imps were disintegrated with sparks. Their exposed bare skin was the final nail in the coffin. Soon, the imps were no more, reduced to stone and dust that drifted away with the trade winds.

“Yay!” Eddie celebrated. “Way to go, old man!”

“Very impressive! The forces of light and darkness canceling each other into a stalemate.”

Wooden panted, “This world hinders my mana. Nevertheless, trouble should not find us again.”

Woden’s eyes were wide, realizing he spoke too soon. Four hidden and unscathed imps emerged from the bald eagle’s starboard side. Eddie was the nearest target. Three of the imps focused on the bald eagle while the fourth imp prepared to douse Eddie with Stone Breath. It happened so suddenly that Eddie and Cassandra could not react in time. Just a split second from Eddie and Casandra being blasted into a petrification state, Woden lunged and blocked the attack with his body, shielding Eddie from harm. With a final effort, Woden wove one last spell.

The remaining imps were sucked into the crystal ball and sealed away into it as it began a metamorphic transformation in a transparent tesseract. Violet Norse runes were inscribed around the tesseract. Eddie and Cassandra were stunned by the sudden change of events. How could this have happened? How was that even possible, they asked themselves. Woden fought the petrification effects with all his might. All he could do was delay the inevitable. His legs were the first to turn to stone.

“I do not have much time left. Take this to Draco.” Cassandra received the tesseract. “He will have the power to extract crucial information out of the imps.”

“You know as well that I’m not allowed to step foot out of Earth.”

Woden snarled, “The entire cosmos is in great danger! Do whatever it takes! And you,” he referred to Eddie. “This is not goodbye . . . or at least I hope so. This petrification was not meant for instant death. It incubates a living organism and preserves them for a year. Seek out all the required ingredients to make a remedy to reverse this spell. You have one year. Re-remem-ber!” he coughed. Petrification was completed as his body solidified into a statue.

Eddie shed a tear, “Old man! I will cure you. Believe it!” He pounded his chest with pride.