When you’re worried about a comment someone has made, you ought to consider the one who is saying it.  I considered the source, and, well, wizards think differently than other people.  They’re not normal.

I tried not to chortle at the understatement.  Instead, I prepared myself for a run.  I did a little stretching, although I was never sure if I was doing the right kind or how much to do to warm up.  I did learn it in high school gym, and I’d never pulled a muscle (although I get enough stitches in my side to need a tailor.)  He nodded.

“Now.”

“Now” is like a magic word by itself – it signifies so much in the way of building pressure suddenly being relieved.  It features in a lot of porn, but even beyond that, it takes the idea of being ready, being prepared, and suddenly overcoming an obstacle.  In this case, it meant my running across with noises that weren’t quite splashes, and weren’t quite thuds.  More flappy-slappy noises.  I barred my mind from thinking of where I’d last heard similar sounds.

I recommend ignorance.  Ignorance is bleepin’ bliss.

Artur did not so much stride across the surface of the water as act as if he were wearing some kind of snow shoes.  I was moving too quickly to really see if he had accomplished this by fact of transformation of himself, or of another spell.  I had assumed he would run with me, but maybe he was ready to feed me to the sharks.

Sharks, of course, would be quite rare in freshwater ponds.  The only sharks I tended to run across were warm and buttery, which doesn’t lend itself well to fear.  It’s kind of hard to respect  something of whom you can use the same words to describe a cinnamon roll.

Nikolai just dove in after us, and paddled the way dogs are known to do.  Kind of iconic, really.

So, as I sailed blithely along with a kind of thuddy pace, it wasn’t until we were about a quarter of the way across that the first obstacle made itself known.

It wasn’t a shark, I’m glad to tell you.

I almost wish it had been.  The thing rose up with tendrils across our path, invisible except for the sheer mass of water it moved with it.  I couldn’t tell if it was a gelatin cousin of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or if it was just some sort of water weird.  It lashed out and I managed to duck underneath, getting soaked.  Nikolai barked, but was set on the whole swimming business.  I paused and started to sink.

At least it would be a slow, suffocating death, unless the elemental managed to pull me out of Artur’s spell to do whatever such a beast is raised to do.

The arc of electric light that left ozone behind it came from Artur.  Ah, wizards at play.  I wished for a seat on shore and some popcorn, because this magic was better than any industrial light show.  The creature, detecting something that was really a threat split in a kind of osmotic fashion, most of its bulk headed back towards Artur.

I remembered what I had in my pockets.

I was running faster as the creature dissolved in some agony, not unlike a slug when gifted with a shower of salt.  I had never stopped moving, which is what kept me from the quicksand effect.  It’s a lesson you can learn from video games, too, especially the dance kind.

I was rapidly running…out of energy.

Trust me, nothing inspires you to get to the gym like the release of a nifty gadget for tracking purposes or the wet sodden mass of a monster after you.  They’re both kind of high up on the list.

So I ran right into the second obstacle, and this one was brilliant.  It was a ring of fire, and I wasn’t a Johnny Cash fan, however you describe it.  It was like elemental lava, ignorant of the arguments water has had with fire.  It flowed from the water, and flames danced across its surface.

However, the designer of this obstacle had not anticipated Artur’s spell design.  I leaped over it with a prayer for my continued lucky streak of uncharred manhood and kept going.  This obstacle left Nikolai behind.

So, two of my party down.  I thought the rule was you only had to run faster than the halfling?  If there was a third obstacle, I was in trouble.

Of course there was a third obstacle.

She was beautiful, about my height, and her skin was faintly transparent.  She surfaced just like Venus from the clamshell.  She looked at me and smiled a mouth full of beautiful shark-like teeth.

I was ready for that, though.  I kept moving toward her, like I was some sex-obsessed sailor.

She wasn’t ready for the Doctor E punch.  Hey, I’d used it on Sylvia, so apparently I have a track record for knocking the breath out of pretty girls.  I don’t think I’d get away with it twice, but she was just solid enough, and I was just quick enough that I made it onto the island while she recovered.

Which at least left firm ground beneath me, so the danger of drowning was at least delayed.

The elemental was outmatched by Artur, but it was a close thing.  I took a moment to watch Artur’s legs as they moved through the water.  He had added bulk and height again, and his legs were more like two tree trunks, kind of ent-ish, really, as he moved through the lake.  He picked up Nikolai (who had swam back and had gotten a few tentacles with his doggish teeth) and gently tossed the dog over the obstacle of fire.

And then the naiad made landfall, on a gentle swell of water and I had to pay attention to my own problems.

“There is no welcome for you here.”

“So if I had a glossy, engraved invitation, you wouldn’t drown me?”

Again, that toothy smile.

I moved back a few steps.  The rules of portals, the ones I had made at least, said that I would enter in a place not unlike the one I had just left.  There’s a continuity.  What was the continuity between the throne set up Ivan had made and the mountains?

I felt the rumble as the so-called solid land beneath me began to awaken.