I started to jump out of my hiding place and run toward my son. And it was not Mace driving me forward, all brave and eager for battle. Nope, that was all Christopher Able. Hell, Mace’s instincts were screaming at me to stop, wait, evaluate the situation, and develop a plan that would have some chance of succeeding. Once I had a plan, then we would send those evil sons of bitches back to Krait’s abyss.

But that was my son out there. A goblin wizard was about to split him in half because of me, and I would die before seeing that happen to my boy.

Before I could even get to my feet, though, Sonja grabbed my shoulders, and Constantine grabbed my torso. Between the two, they stopped me from charging toward the goblin bastard who wanted to kill my son.

I struggled and fought against them both. I kicked Constantine in his chest, and he made an “oof” sound but continued to hold me. I tried headbutting Sonja in the nose again, but she headbutted me first. I felt a crunch in my nose, and then stars flooded my sight. It didn’t knock me out, but it stunned me enough for them to flip me onto my back and sit on me.

“Goddamn it, let me go!” I screamed. “Jack’s out there!”

I wanted my screams to give away our position. Maybe that would force the others to let me go so I could face down the mage goblin myself since they were all too scared to come with me. Or maybe that would just bring the goblins to us. Either way, I’d get the fight I wanted.

“We know!” Sonja yelled. “But you can’t go out there—”

I was surprised she screamed at me, but then I came to my senses and remembered Stephen’s Silent Dome.

“He’s gonna kill Jack! Let me go!”

“Humans!” roared the goblin mage again. “I count to ten. If you no back by ten, I kill boy. One…”

“It’s not him,” Sonja screamed in my ear, “it’s just an illusion!”

“What?”

“…two…”

“This is just like last time!” Stephen growled. He took something from a pouch and started chewing as he glared at me.

“What last time?”

“…three…”

Sonja brought her mouth close to my ear and said in a normal tone that somehow got my attention more than her screaming, “You saw your son among the enslaved gnomes and ran off to save him. That’s how you died last time. You died for an illusion.”

“…four…”

“How do you know he’s an illusion?”

“…five…”

“Because it happened last time,” Constantine grunted as he tried to keep hold of my legs. “You died, and the illusion disappeared.”

I still fought against my friends to rescue my boy, but seeds of doubt sprouted in my mind.

The Tomb had somehow brought my friends and me here, so why was it so farfetched for it to bring my son? Could I take the chance that it wasn’t him out there?

But what if Jack was just an illusion? I didn’t want to run out, die again, and start from scratch in that Spawn Room. I’d come so far and learned so much. How would The Tomb change things again if my friends even bothered to come back for me? And would my charge into a futile battle kill my friends, forcing us all to start from scratch? What happened if we used up the three lives Barney said we had?

I wanted to go home.

Mace’s instincts were screaming at me to trust my friends, to listen to their experience. But every fiber of my being screamed to go fight for my son, even if it risked my friends’ lives.

“…six…”

“You have to trust us,” Sonja pleaded.

“…seven…eight…”

I released a long sigh and stopped fighting. When I felt Sonja and Constantine relax their grips, I took about a second to use my Precision Strike skill to figure out the best place to hit both Sonja and Constantine. For Sonja, given our positioning, it was a headbutt to her ear. For Constantine, my right knee into his chin.

Once I decided, I hit them both at the same time. As I’d hoped, both were stunned, allowing me to slip away from them and draw my sword.

I’d noticed Stephen chewing on something earlier and suspected he was about to cast some of his filthy Krait magic on me. As soon as I escaped Sonja and Constantine, I spent a Magic Point and yelled, “Ancestral Shield!”

The shield encased my whole body like a glove when Stephen yelled, “Sleep!”

The spell hit me with a short wave of vertigo that made me stumble a bit, but it passed in an eye blink. Stephen swore.

“…nine…”

“Mace,” Sonja cried, “don’t do this!”

I looked at her and said, “I’m not Mace.”

Then I ran out from behind the outcropping and sprinted toward the mage and Jack, crying, “Wait! Wait! I’m here!”

The goblin mage swung his massive, scarred head toward me, then grunted something at the goblins still on the ground before him. As one, they jumped into the air, flapped their wings a couple of times, and then landed heavily within a few feet of me, their massive scimitars drawn and pointed at my chest.

I took an attack stance and yelled, “I’ll come with you if you let my son go!”

I knew there was no way I could defeat four bigfoot-sized goblins on my own, but I’d damn well make them pay in blood for trying to take me.

The goblins surrounded me and snarled and spit at me, but they didn’t attack. The mage goblin slowly walked toward us. He stopped just outside the circle of goblins and sneered. I’d never seen anything so big that walked on two legs. He didn’t even need magic to crush me—he could do it with a single fist. His yellow eyes told me that he knew this.

Nevertheless, I drew on Mace’s bravery and said, “Let my son go, and I’ll come with you.”

The mage snorted and grunted something, which made the others snort and grunt too.

“You come with me no matter what I do to human boy,” the mage goblin said. “Put down sword and release magic shield.”

“Are you Trox?” I asked.

The mage’s bushy eyebrows raised. “Ah, good, you know my name. Now my turn. You are Mace.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Or you like Christopher better?”

I stared at him, my gut turning cold, but I didn’t say anything.

“I know many things about you and friends,” Trox said, then thumped his massive chest twice like King Kong. “I wisest, most powerful being in dungeon.”

“More powerful than Angelus?”

Trox waved a hand dismissively. “Angelus is old. I am new power here. That my head carved into wall in room where I take your dwarf. You like my pet stranglers? Make your eyes cry, yes? They only part of my true power. They good distraction. I take your dwarf and lure rest of you to my trap near falls.” He glanced behind me. “Where your other friends go? They abandon you, little Mace Christopher?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Probably in Level Two by now.”

Trox grunted something at the two goblins in front of me. They stood, and Trox gave them both a pouch from his components belt. The two goblins snorted once, then took to the air and flew above me toward the outcropping. I prayed to whatever gods were listening that my friends had run off and had somehow entered Level Two. This was my fight, my mess, and I didn’t want them dragged into it. I’d figure out how to get my son out on my own.

“My friends ran off that way.” I pointed in the direction where Stephen had cast his voice.

“We shall see,” Trox sneered. “I know magic. I know voices can deceive. I will make sure your friends do not escape to next level.”

As soon as he said that, a rumble came from behind me and then the sound of crashing boulders. I turned and saw a red, fiery glow from where the mystical door to Level Two was.

No, I thought with growing despair. Now we’ll never get to Level Two.

“You and friends stay in my domain,” Trox said triumphantly, his yellow eyes glowing with malice. “Now put down sword and release shield.”

He raised his hand again, and it began to glow with the same hazy black light it had when he killed the angry goblin. He pointed his hand at Jack, who still lay on the ground near the goblin dung fire and black portal.

“I no say again,” Trox growled.

Please God, let me be right about this, I thought. Then I tossed my sword to the ground. I’d never “turned off” my Ancestral Shield before, so I tried willing it away.

It worked because as soon as it did, a constricting sensation gripped my entire body. I could still breathe, but none of my muscles obeyed my commands. I couldn’t even blink. Did he just cast Hold Person on me? In some ways, it was the worst thing I had experienced so far in this dungeon because no matter how much I fought to move a finger, I couldn’t do it. This monster had taken away my free will.

A goblin behind me scooped me up and flung me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. My body moved to drape itself over his shoulder, but I still had no control over it.

I saw Trox’s black boots following the goblin who carried me. “We find your friends soon,” he said. “Then we trade you to someone who not as kind as us.”

Trox said something in the goblin language, and the one who carried me snorted ominous laughter.

When we reached the campsite, the goblin dumped me onto the ground facing Jack, which gave me my first good look at him. He was unconscious, but I could see his chest moving with each breath. His black hair hung over one eye, and his lower lip was purple and swollen. They’d tied his hands with coarse rope, and his favorite Bulldogs sweatshirt had a rip in the collar. However they had taken him, it looked like he had fought as best he could.

This couldn’t be an illusion. I could even smell his deodorant. I didn’t know whether to feel vindicated or horrified.

“You cause much damage to my cage, human,” Trox said. “And you make me kill my best soldier.” He stooped down so that I could see his toothy, chilling smile. “I thank you. Means your trade price go up.”

He held up my Ancestral Longsword and studied it. It was like a dagger in his massive fist. “Pretty sword too. I get much gold for this.”

I felt righteous anger come from Mace, which made me fight even harder against the spell, but I couldn’t budge a muscle. My eyes were getting dry and hazy. A maddening tickle came from my throat from the saliva rolling down it and my inability to cough.

I began to think the real danger of the Hold Person spell was not physical pain but madness.

“I go renegotiate,” Trox said as he stood. He shoved my sword into his belt beneath his black dragon scale jacket. “I be back soon. You wait here.”

He snorted his evil goblin laughter at his lame joke. I saw him step back through the black portal from the corner of my eye. When he did, the portal vanished with another thunderclap, and then it was just me, my unconscious son, and the dung fire.