“You are not at all what I expected.”

Garrick awoke in a forest.

No, “awoke” was the wrong word. He was certain he had not been sleeping at all.

He had… emerged? Appeared? Words failed him. He didn’t quite know how to name the strange, disorienting clarity of his sudden consciousness. One moment – this moment – he was alert yet confused, aware of every color and scent and sound of the moist, misty, temperate forest around him, a cacophony of wind-rustled leaves and distant animal calls and the buzzing of insects about his head.

The moment before he had been… he didn’t know. Garrick certainly didn’t feel newborn, but there were no memories of his existence before this moment. Only a void. It was as though he had sprung into being fully-formed in this place that clearly was not home.

Someone had just spoken to him.

Garrick looked warily about, instinctively reaching for the sword at his side, comforted by the familiar feel of its steel hilt.

Why do I carry a sword? How do I know it’s a sword?

SHING! – The blade was out of its scabbard and in his hand of its own accord, glistening and new-polished under sparse sunlight peeking through the thick canopy overhead.

He heard movement everywhere – the forest was rustling with the sounds of overwhelming, hidden life – but it was a stillness that caught his eye. An animal, sitting perfectly still and fearless, on a wet, rotting tree stump to Garrick’s left.

It was a toad, dry, warty skin with blotches of green and grey, regarding him coolly through wide, protruding black eyes and a calmly throbbing throat sack.

Garrick’s gaze passed over the strangely serene toad to scan the trees around him. Whoever had spoken must be hiding behind one of them. Perhaps this was an ambush.

“Who’s there? Show yourself.”

“I am here.”

The voice was a deep baritone, but sounded small, and came from far too low a place, as though its speaker were hiding somewhere near Garrick’s feet.

He scanned the ground, turning a full circle, sword at the ready, until his eye fell again upon the green and grey toad to his left.

“Yes,” said the toad. “I am here. It is I who called you. But, as I said, you are not at all what I expected.”

Garrick pointed his blade at the toad. “What sorcery is this? What trickery? Toads do not speak.”

“Sorcery, indeed, my friend. But no trickery, I assure you.”

Garrick stepped forward, brandishing his sword menacingly, trying to use his great size to cow the toad into submission.

“It’s no use,” said the toad. “You are enjoined from harming me. The nature of our pact…”

“We have no pact, warlock. Assume your true form, that we may parley with honor.”

“This is my true form, sir,” said the toad. “Forgive my manners. I am Thoop, a warlock, you are correct, of the clan Thundercroak. I would bow in greeting, were I so built. But alas, I am not so built.” Thoop nodded his tiny head. “Might I have the name of my familiar?”

Garrick didn’t know how to answer, or even if he should. Toads weren’t supposed to talk, were they? Perhaps this was some strange dream.

“If you are referring to me, sir toad, my name is Garrick of… of…” Garrick’s voice drifted off, his recollection lost in the gulf of nothingness before his emergence.

“Why can’t I recall?” And how do I even know that is my name at all?

“Hm,” said Thoop. “Amnesia is common among longpaw familiars. Or so I’m told by tradition and tome. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a human familiar in generations.”

“Speak plainly, Master Thoop.” Garrick, in spite of himself, was already acclimating to the idea of a talking toad wizard.

“Apologies again,” Thoop said. “I will be brief, for time is against us. This log is sacred to my clan. Though the Thundercroaks are warriors by tradition, now and then we hatch an adept, such as myself. I came here to fulfill my final rite of passage, the calling of a familiar, a friend and protector who will serve me loyally until I release him, or until one of us dies, may the Eld-Tree forbid.”

Garrick’s sword arm lowered slowly, as confused as Garrick himself.

“It is the final ritual of my station,” said Thoop, “signifying my ascension to full membership in the magical siblinghoods of all the Trucelands. Even now, the Eld-mark appears on my belly.”

“This is madness,” said Garrick, sheathing his sword in protest. “I am leaving.” He turned on his heel, squelching in the mud and looking about for anything resembling a trail.

“To depart where, friend Garrick?”

“Wherever my feet take me, until I awake from this dream.”

He stamped off into the woods, drawing his sword once more to hack himself a path if need be.

“You must stay.”

Garrick ignored the little beast. Toads don’t talk, and he was now more certain than ever that the reason he couldn’t remember sleeping was that he’d never woken up. He was still tucked away somewhere next to a warm hearth, under a luxurious pelt, with a maiden in his arms.

“Please, Garrick,” Thoop croaked through the trees. “Stay, and help.”

“I’ll help myself,” Garrick called back, “to a hot breakfast when I awake.”

STAY.

Thoop’s voice filled Garrick’s mind, and Garrick froze in place, muscles as stiff as a mountain. For all his effort, he couldn’t even blink his eye. His body was no longer his own.

He heard Thoop hop over to him across the carpet of wet leaves, and rest upon his right foot.

I apologize for commanding you, Garrick. I find this method of obtaining compliance distasteful, and disrespectful to you. But as I said, time is against us.

Thoop allowed Garrick to shift his gaze downward, so they could look in each other’s eyes. The toad’s green and grey warts complemented Garrick’s brown leather boots.

Suddenly, Garrick heard – and with their minds still linked, felt down to his deepest bones – a cacophony of high-pitched toad calls echoing through the forest. Cries of agony and terror, warnings to flee, despair for the death of young. Even under Thoop’s control, he shivered.

“My knot,” cried Thoop, “they are under attack! Untold innocents could be slaughtered. I beg thee, Garrick. Help us, and I will release you, should that be your wish.”

Garrick wanted out of this fever-dream, wanted to wake up in that maiden’s arms, but the sick feeling of betrayal that overcame him now for even thinking such thoughts was too much to ignore. Whatever his quarrel with this impossible talking toad, the innocent lives being snuffed out at the edge of his senses were no part of it. He would not have their blood on his conscience, not if he could have acted to save them. Even if they were just dreams.

I will help, he thought at Thoop. You have my word.

And then, Garrick’s body was his own again. Thoop had released him.

“The Thundercroaks are in your debt, Garrick. Now, if you would kindly place me in your breast pocket, we can cover more ground with your legs than mine. I will direct you to my knot’s domain. It is not far.”

The cacophony of toad distress calls echoed through the woods again, rattling Garrick’s skull and wounding his heart.

“We must hurry!” Thoop cried.

Garrick scooped the little toad up with gentle swiftness, and stuck him in his left breast pocket, the one nearest his heart. Thoop’s hind legs dangled inside the pocket, as he propped himself at its edge with his forelegs. The toad looked up at Garrick, who drew his sword with the vigor of a knight crusading against the Winnower.

“Lead on then, Master Thoop.”

If toads could smile, Garrick was certain that Thoop would have done so.

“To the west,” Thoop said, projecting a toad’s-eye view of the route into Garrick’s mind, a disorienting series of leaps into the air, none ever higher than the height of a downed log, but all unbearably dizzying.

“Let me use my own eyes!”

“Apologies,” said Thoop. “Please, make haste!”

Garrick charged off into the forest, hacking a path with his shining blade, looking for anything resembling a suitable footpath.

“Remarkable,” Thoop said. “I have never seen the world from up here.”