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Max put a tankard down on the little table beside the rocker. “Will you give me your name and purpose?”
    “My name is Merlyn.” No protest at being called a wyrder.
    “I’ve heard that name.”
    The corners of the wyrder’s mouth twitched, and his brow softened.
    “You’re brother to Morwenna of Avalos.”
    “Avalos.”
    “The apple isle, sacred home of the wyrd. The abbess is called Morwenna—or was, the last I heard anything of it. She’s supposedly a great wyrding woman.”
    Max had heard nothing in praise or contempt for the powers of the abbess of Avalos, but something about this wyrder’s pride bugged him.
    “Morwenna’s magics are adequate,” Merlyn said. “I now live in the mundane realm. I serve Utros Pendragon, who will one day be king of all Dumnos.”
    “Very nice, but what’s that to do with me?”
    “Don’t doubt me, goblin. I have seen it.” Merlyn stopped and drank. More politely, he said, “I come to beg a favor of Maxim of the Blue Vale, the greatest of all goblins. But you must come to the human realm in order to bestow this favor.”
    Intriguing. “Now that statement is bursting with interesting assumptions and presumptions, wyrder.”
    “I try.” Merlyn’s eyes twinkled. “What do I assume and presume?”
    “You assume that I’m even a great goblin, let alone the greatest of all goblins. Vulsier is the one you want.”
    “Vulsier, pish-posh. You will be the greatest goblin. I have seen it. One day you’ll be king not only of the goblins but of all the Dumnos fae.”
    “King. Me.” For a moment Max lost the thread. His brain, and other parts, went straight to his mind’s picture of that thieving fairy. Now wouldn’t he just love to be her king, to see those blue eyes go green for him again, to hear that saucy, wind-chime voice call him my lord …
    “Yes, yes. All in good time,” Merlyn said.
    Max pulled back. Could this wyrder read thoughts? “You also assume that a favor from any fae is given for the asking—or without a return.”
    “Quite the contrary, Maxim. I expect to pay… and dearly.” The wyrder drank his stout and stared at the cold fireplace. For half a second, a reflection of flames flickered in his eyes. “So much for assumptions,” he said. “What are my presumptions?”
    “Hm.” There was something off about this whole thing. Something not right. Max said, “You presume that you’ll easily return to the mundane world. How do you intend to get out of fae?”
    “Not a problem. Technically, I’m not there… Here… There.”
    Merlyn raised a hand and pressed it against some kind of support Max couldn’t see, a wall or tree trunk. The wyrder wore but one ornament on that hand, a simple double ring, two bands entwined, one silver, one gold.
    “As I said, the wyrd have no power in the fae realm,” Max said. “And yet I feel great power coming off that ring.”
    “And as I said, I haven’t come to fae. I’m not actually there with you.”
    “I see you. You’re sitting in my rocking chair, drinking my stout from the tankard I handed you.”
    “It would appear so. This is my proxy spirit you see. It’s a spell of my own design. I’m delighted to see how well it works.”
    Max reached out to touch the human and felt something real enough, a kind of energy or power. He grasped at it, but it slipped away, nothing he could hold on to.
    “Give me your hand, young Maxim of the Blue Vale.” Merlyn stretched forth an insubstantial hand. “The time has come for your leap of faith.”
    There was not an instant’s hesitation. Young and open-minded—or young and foolish—he believed in himself, and he was ravenous to know… everything.
    Max couldn’t not take that hand.

« Chapter 5 »
Desire is the Fire
    T HE FIRST THING THAT hit Max was the ocean air—cold, salty, alive—and the breezes accompanied by the pounding of waves on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs where he stood. He was in the human realm, beside a great tree that