Kristopher wakes up in an ambulance. "How long was I out and what happened?" he says to a paramedic.
David, on the left of him, replies "You were out for like forty minutes. And you had a seizure."
"Hey! So I saw the tree again-" Kristopher says.
The paramedic cuts him off, "Tree?" The boys both look at the woman. "Oh. Sorry."
"So anyway, it said to touch your forehead and you will get all of my abilities." Kristopher says and the boys stare awkwardly for a few seconds.
"Well are you going to?" David asks.
"Should we trust it? I mean, a cosmic tree we have both seen. Telling me to touch your forehead."
"What could go wrong?"
"I dunno"
"Dude," David says, "touch my dang forehead .
"But..." Kristopher says. David grabs Kristopher's hand and slaps it against his forehead. A grey stream of light comes from both of their foreheads and connects, little bits of other colors streaming through it. The ambulance lady looks awestruck with a hint of disgust. "So. We need to act quick." Kristopher says as he looks out the window. He sees one car behind him.
"One car. Should we do the transport in here?" David asks.
"Probably not. I'm not sure if it will tear this thing apart." Kristopher says, motioning to the ambulance around him. He turns to the nurse next to him. "Can we pull over?"
"No. We have to get you to the hospital. Just check you out. You will be out soon enough. I promise" The lady says.
"We may not have that long" David says.
"If ten months there was a month here... that's like a week or so a day. No telling what could have happened since we left." Kristopher says.
"Yup. Sorry ambulance lady, but we need to leave." The boys turn to the door and see no cars behind. "And we have clearance to leave."
"That almost makes no sense."
The attendant gets up in a rush "No! You can't just rush off out of the back of a rushing vehicle. Then you will really need a hospital trip."
Kristopher turns to her. "Well," he looks at her nametag, "Clara, we can and will." And just like that the boys opened the doors. Time slowed, but this time for both of the boys. They both launched themselves to a field with tall weeds and rolled for safety. They had to act fast. Kristopher draws boxes in a three by three grid. He touches the first, the fifth, the ninth, the second, the eighth, and the fifth again.
The grid starts to glow and shows grey stone bricks. The boys look at it and look to each other. David looks to his brother and says, "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is." The two step into it and back into Armada, To the immediate left of Fenol's castle.
***
The boys travel through the trees to get to Jeba's. They make it to town and look around. nothing seems wrong. The town looks absolutely normal. The boys continue through the trees. They make it after ten more minutes of travelling. They stand outside the door for a few seconds. David raises his hand to knock when Kristopher shouts "Jeba? We are back!"
Within seconds their old friend is at the door. He throws a blue ash at the boys and they cough. "You really are back," Jeba says and hits Kristopher on the head, "do you want Fenol to know?" He waves the boys in. They sit in their usual spots.
David looks at Jeba "So what was that you threw at us?"
"It is the ash from Mount Zendill. The ash reveals the true form of someone. if you were dead you would have disappeared."
Kristopher nods and then pauses. "Hey Jeba. Would creating a portal here cause enough magic to alert Fenol of us coming back?"
"No. I mean... I'm actually not sure. Maybe not. How did you do it?" Kristopher explains the grid. "That sounds like the old way of making portals. Before magic was used."
David looks to Jeba "Didn't Fenol use magic to send us back to Earth?"
"He isn't the smartest with magic. He has a library, but I am the one who read the books."
"I gotcha. You have always been smarter. So do you know how I could broadcast to everyone how Fenol is evil?"
"Explain to me what happened when you got back first." The boys explained most of what happened. Except for the tree. They agreed it should be between the two of them. And Clara. "It sounds like he used the magic not for the portal, but for your normalcy. He really did seem to like you boys."
"So how do we expose that he is evil?" David asks
"Imagine pushing your memories into someone. practice on your brother." David turns to his brother and concentrates.
David looks up, face scrunched. "Is it working?"
Kristopher shakes his head. "No. Now I'll try" Kristopher's index finger starts to glow and the glow moves to the end of his finger. He raises it and the glow raises above his finger. he pushes the ball into his brother's forehead.
David looks up "So in your dream it is a moon. In mine it's a sun."
Jeba looks across the two of their faces, "What?"
David looks to Kristopher who shakes his head against David's thoughts. "So he and I have dreamed of this tree."
Kristopher looks at David, "Dude. No."
David continues, "And it told us that we have to fight evil or something and it told us how to exchange power."
Jeba looks at the boys "There was one story actually."
Both the boys turn and look at Jeba, "What was it?"
"I read it so long ago. I can't remember. But it was in Fenol's castle."
"So we have to go and stop Fenol and then read this book. Perfect."
***
Kristopher pushes a ball of memory into someone on the street. For the last month, David and Kristopher had been forming an army of followers to charge the castle. The blacksmith had been making shields and armor for people. Everyone had been keeping the brothers a secret from their old idol. They planned to attack within a week. They didn't like Fenol's plan to control them and they wanted him to know.
