1. THE BOY IN THE WELL

"What do you see? What do you see?"

Astrina was bubbly with curiosity as her friend, Adele, bent over the stone-and-mortar wall of a well to look into its water.

"Come on!" Astrina said. "Come on!"

A woman sitting a few feet away from the well told Astrina, "Patience. This cannot be rushed."

"Pooh." Astrina plopped on her butt beside the well and pouted.

The woman, Cristiona, laughed. As Mother of the Temple it was a duty-and Cristiona's privilege-to bring girls to Azura's Well when they came of age. Having brought dozens here during her tenure, Cristiona was used to dealing with the occasional irritable girl. Even so, Astrina's level of impatience put the child in a class by herself.

"I think I see something," Adele said.

Astrina started to jump up, until Cristiona told her to stay seated.

"Yes!" Adele shouted. "I see a cottage!"

"And?" Astrina asked.

Cristiona tapped the ground. Astrina looked her way and she waved a finger. The girl's glower and slumped shoulders told Cristiona that Astrina got her message: Be still!

"I see a cottage! And a paddock with horses! Such beautiful horses! Most from Duncan, but a few mares from Algol! The dark blue ones with the webbed hoofs!"

"You can't see those!" Astrina shouted.

"Astrina!" Cristiona scolded.

Adele either didn't hear her friend or didn't care. The girl was all smiles as she turned from the well. "I couldn't have wished for anything better, Mother Cristiona! Do you think it will come true?"

"Perhaps. With work. You know Azura's Well only shows visions of what could be, not what will be. It never shows you anything that is beyond your ability to make come true, though, Adele."

"I know! I know!" Adele spun once all the way around before stepping away from the well.

Cristiona told Astrina, "You can take your turn now."

But Astrina didn't move.

That worried Cristiona. Astrina never didn't move. She repeated the girl's name.

"Maybe later."

"There is no later, Astrina. This is your time."

"I thought you said this couldn't be rushed."

"It can't, but it can't be put off, either. Now, please, look."

Astrina had to stop trembling before she could stand much less look into the well. What's wrong with me? she thought. Astrina, like every Kee'lan child, had dreamt of this day all her life. The day when Mother Cristiona came for a girl, or Father Cheyney came for a boy, and pronounced that the child was old enough and mature enough to take the first step on the quest from youth to adulthood. To walk with the Mother or the Father to the ruins called Tír na nÓg, the keep built by the bold King Penkawr as the first capital of Duncan, the Land of Dreams.

Cristiona's gentle hand touched Astrina's shoulder. She smiled. "Relax. All you have to do is look."

And whatever I see maybe changes my life forever. Astrina forced herself to stand and then bend over the stone-and-mortar wall to peer into the well.

Water clear as mountain rain reflected Astrina's face. Like all Kee'lan she had a teardrop face, light complexion, silver-blue hair, and peaked ears. Her pale gray eyes, slanted like a cat's, were afraid. I don't want to be afraid!

Adele asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I will be fine. I will be fine. I will be fine.

"See anything yet?"

"A little patience, Adele. Remember?"

Cristiona pretended to clear her throat.

Astrina apologized to Adele for snapping.

In the well, lights and shadows flickered and darted under the water's surface. "I think I see something," Astrina said. Somehow her galloping heart began beating faster.

"That's good," Cristiona told her. "All you have to do is watch."

The eyes of Astrina's reflection widened. This was it! Her moment! Time to glimpse what could be her destiny!

"What do you see?" Adele asked.

"I see…I see…" Astrina sounded puzzled.

"What?" Adele was positive Astrina would see exotic lands and lost worlds. Astrina's dream had always been to travel and do great things.

"I see…a boy."

"What? What boy?"

"I don't know him, or why he's wearing the number twelve on his shirt."

Astrina stared at the boy in the well. She stared a long time. And the longer she stared, the more her eyes sparkled, the warmer her blushing cheeks felt, and the more she smiled.

2. WILD HORSE VALLEY

The boy wearing the number twelve on his shirt was bored enough to spit.

Ollie Steele sat in the hayloft opening of his Uncle Lloyd's prairie barn. Leaning a shoulder against the opening's threshold, Ollie dangled his legs out over the edge as he flipped a coin in the air and caught it.

From up here Ollie could see his uncle's farm and nothing else except cornfields and sand hills. Ollie was in Nebraska, living with his uncle while his parents were both on tours of duty. In another week his mom, Diana, would finish her tour aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, where she was a Navy ensign. Then Ollie could go home to Guantanamo Base Naval Station (GTMO), Cuba.

Ollie sighed. Flipped the coin. Caught it. Sighed again and thought, This bites.

"Hey, nephew!"

Ollie looked down and saw his Uncle Lloyd standing in the yard in front of the barn. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm picking up those parts for the irrigator. Want to come along? We can grab lunch at the Lake Avenue Grill."

Oh, yeah. That sounds like a funky good time. "No, sir. I'd like to grab a nap, if that's all right."

"You feel okay?"

"Sure. Just used to city kids' hours."

Lloyd believed that. "All right. Have some lunch, 'cause we won't get another chance to eat again 'till supper. I'll be back by two."

"Yes, sir."

A minute later Ollie watched his uncle's half-ton Ford pickup bounce down the gravel road on its way to Brady. Lloyd's farm was in Wild Horse Valley and Brady, ten miles south, was the nearest town. Brady was little more than a post office, a gas station, a bank, a co-op, and a pop machine, so when Lloyd got there he would turn east on Highway 30 and drive the sixteen miles to the city of Gothenburg.

"Have fun," Ollie bid the pick up farewell.

Ollie liked his uncle. Lloyd, a bachelor, was a tough farmer who said little but who loved his sister Diana and her family. His uncle, though, was no Walt Disney and this farm was no amusement park. Ollie had never been afraid of hard work. Not with a Marine for a father. But at least Marines got to shoot guns and fight hand-to-hand and practice survival skills. Even a forced march offered a constant change of scenery. Hard work on a farm was just so boring!

Ollie sighed and looked at his coin.

Old and ghastly ugly, it was a bit bigger than a fifty-cent piece. Carved on both its tarnished and worn sides were the same image of a bat-winged creature with a misshapen human face. Ollie's uncle could not understand why Ollie kept it, and would never have believed Ollie if the boy explained, so Ollie just said, "I like it."

Ollie flipped and caught the coin one last time, then climbed out of the loft and went into the farmhouse. In the kitchen he turned on the radio, tuning it to a sports radio station to find out if there was any news about the Chicago Cubs, then got to work making a braunschwieger sandwich.

After lunch, Ollie rinsed his dishes then put them in the sink before going into the living room. Kicking off his sneakers, he dropped on the couch. He didn't bother turning on the TV. Uncle Lloyd didn't have cable or a satellite dish, so the only things on were soap operas and noonday news. Left with those choice, Ollie shut his eyes and tried to take that nap. He actually was a little tired and it would be two o'clock before he knew it.

Halfway between drowsiness and sleep, Ollie thought he heard someone call his name. The voice wasn't Uncle Lloyd's-it was way too high pitched-so Ollie figured he had imagined it and rolled over on his stomach.

Ollie heard his name again. He also felt something tickling his face. And he could have sworn he felt wind and heard birds chirping. Curious, Ollie opened his eyes.

"Garrgh!"

He was in a grassy forest clearing!

Ollie pushed himself off the ground with his arms. "How'd I get here?" He stood and felt the ground through his socks. "And where are my shoes?" Ollie remembered he had removed them before laying on the couch. "Oh, great!"

"Ollie?" It was the high-pitched voice again.

"Who is it? What do you want?"

No answer.

"I'm getting out of here." Ollie reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the coin. It might have looked like a harmless piece of ghastly ugly metal, but, if Ollie needed it to, the coin would protect him. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to daydream about Uncle Lloyd's farm. Ollie had discovered a short time ago that he had the power to travel wherever he wanted to through his daydreams, so long as he could really picture where it was he wanted to go.

"Hello there!" someone said to him.

Ollie hollered.

A girl, with silver-blue hair and mischievous gray eyes, was poking her head out from the foliage around a rowan tree behind him. She smiled at Ollie.

3. OLLIE'S FRIENDS

"Laird Reggie! You're lunging too soon!"

In the Plane of Imaginings, the place where dreams and nightmares come from, there is a moor called Ives Horizon.

"Do not attack unless you're sure of yer distance! And never--never--try to reach beyond the point of control!"

On Ives Horizon there is a cottage called Culver House, where a big man named Pratt and his daughter Jennifer live. Alone.

"Laird Colin! Laird Timmy! Yer buckler should never rest on any part of yer arm! Hold it tight in yer fist!"

Visitors to Culver House have been rare over the years; but, lately, Pratt and Jennifer have been receiving regular company.

"Jennifer! Show these lads how to engage an opponent…again!"

"Yes, Papa."

The lads-Reggie Spencer III, Colin Sinclair, and Timmy Shannon-each stood in their own corner of a large dirt practice square near Culver House's horse paddock. Jennifer, a freckled orange-haired girl, marched out from the fourth corner into the center of the square. With a confident grin and shake of her head, she saluted by raising the wooden practice sword in her right hand until its hilt was level with her mouth. Jennifer then beat the back of her small wooden shield-or "buckler"-twice with the back of her sword. Watching all this while sitting on the paddock's wall was Colin's longhaired gray cat, Shadow, who went almost everywhere with the boy.

"Begin!" Pratt commanded.

In one motion Jennifer stepped forward with her left foot, straightened her right arm so her hand hovered six inches in front of her waist, and extended her left arm out in front of her body so it was parallel to the ground. The point of Jennifer's sword aimed up, where her opponent's right shoulder would be, while her buckler protected her face and chest.

"This position," Pratt lectured, "is called 'the guard.' Laird Colin, if yer opponent is on the left side of yer sword when ya engage in the guard position, what should ya do?"

Colin, a black-haired Welsh boy with insightful eyes the color of a cloudy June day, answered, "Move your blade to the left."

"Good! Laird Reggie, why should ya move yer blade to the left?"

"So whoever I'm fighting can't skewer me with a simple lunge." Handsome, towheaded, athletic, but a bit shorter than the average twelve year old, Reggie smirked at Pratt.

"Don't be so cheeky, lad. But you're correct. Laird Timmy?"

"Yes, sir?" Timmy, a brown-haired beanpole boy, was the tallest of the lads. He lived at GTMO with his mother Dabney, a lieutenant commander in the Navy. The Shannons and Ollie Steele's family resided in the same duplex on the base, and Timmy and Ollie were lifelong best friends. Ollie usually came along to Culver House with Timmy to practice swordfighting, but lately Ollie had been too busy helping on Lloyd's farm to join them.

Pratt queried, "What do ya do when ya engage yer opponent and he is on the right side of your sword?"

"Move my blade to the right, sir. For the same reason Reggie just said."

"Excellent!"

Reggie stamped a foot. "'Excellent'? That was a softball question!"

Pratt squinted at Reggie as he asked, "Laird Timmy, what will happen to ya if ya attack an opponent but lunge too soon?"

"I'll probably get killed."

"Why is that?" Pratt continued squinting at Reggie as Reggie forced himself not to blink.

"Well, if I lunge too soon, I'll probably miss, and then I'll have to pull my sword back sooner than I wanted. So I'll be defenseless until I can regain my balance, but by then my opponent will probably have stabbed me."

"Probably," Pratt smirked at Reggie.

"All right," Reggie said. "I get it. I get it."

"I sincerely hope ya do." Pratt then told everyone, "Another practice drill! Lairds Reggie and Timmy! Laird Reggie, ya attack first. Show me an advance-lunge."

Jennifer surrendered the center of the square so Reggie and Timmy could use the space. Reggie tried not to let Jennifer see him sneak a peek at her as she walked over beside Colin, who had moved to the paddock to sit beside Shadow. Reggie, hoping to impress her with his swordplay, got into the guard position. Timmy did the same.

"Begin!" shouted Pratt.

Reggie advanced, moving forward a step from the guard position.

Timmy retreated.

Reggie extended his sword arm and at the same time lunged with the rest of his body. His timing and coordination were perfect. The point of his sword should have tapped Timmy's chest.

Except Timmy parried, deflecting Reggie's blade so its point stabbed the ground next to his right foot. Then Timmy slid his left foot forward, reached his arm around Reggie's chest, and bowed Reggie back over his left knee.

Jennifer gasped.

Colin shouted, "Raz!" He couldn't have been more amazed.

Shadow hissed and leapt off the wall into the paddock.

Pratt stared, unsure what to say. He had never taught the lads that move, known as a seizure. He never even showed it to Jennifer, who he had been training since she was eight. Besides that, there was the matter of Timmy's skill. Pratt could not have executed the seizure much better himself. Unable to think of anything else to say, he told Timmy, "Release Laird Reggie."

"If you…don't mind," the helpless Reggie groused.

Timmy frowned at Reggie. Typically good-natured and almost shy, he demanded, "Say uncle."

That startled everyone.

"What?" Reggie managed to snarl.

"I told you to say…" Timmy stopped. Stared straight ahead at nothing. Fear flooded his eyes. "Uncle! Ollie's uncle's farm!" Frantic, Timmy let go of Reggie, who rolled to the ground. "Ollie's in trouble! He needs help!"

Colin and Jennifer ran up to Timmy as Pratt hung back, still staring at Timmy. "Is Ollie hurt?" Jennifer asked, followed by Colin's, "Did something happen at the farm?"

"No! He's here! I can feel it! Can't you?"

The kids all looked around as Reggie asked, "Where 'here'?"

"Somewhere on the Plane of Imaginings! We've got to help him! Now!"