For nearly a hundred years the Dark Lord and his trolls subjugated all of the other noble races. The elves, dwarves, men, and blue men all suffered under the Dark Lord’s reign.
In this time, however, a spark ignited and a beacon of hope shone across the land, for it was prophesied that a hero would rise, regain the lost Venerable Sword, destroy the Dark Lord, and bring peace to Valorous. The prophecy predicted a girl would be born in the Forest of Obscurity during a solar eclipse. When a woman grown she had become, she would be visited by the Flying Sword God on another solar eclipse and have the ancient Venerable Sword bestowed upon her.
Such a girl was born. Her name was Cymbre.
In secret, the Realm rejoiced. Many races came together to keep the child’s birth a secret from the Dark Lord and his minions.
Cymbre trained in combat with the elves, although she was born into the race of men. She learned of the land and how to use its resources from the dwarves. She took counsel from the leader of the blue men, who wore a red hat and pants instead of white and had a beard and was very wise.
As Cymbre grew up, more powerful, cunning, and beautiful with every passing day, the Realm found something to believe in: a hero who could save them from their wretched existence under the Dark Lord’s thumb.
On the day of the solar eclipse, Cymbre waited by the Great Oak, the holy place where the Flying Sword God was to appear.
But appear he did not. C
Cymbre watched the sun shrink into a mere sliver. She waited through the midday darkness. She watched the sun poke out the other side. But the Flying Sword God never came. The prophecy had been false. She was nothing more than a shepherd’s daughter. She was not the hero of destiny she had been told that she was her entire life.
But Cymbre, bold and brave and beautiful, did not shrink away and vanish from history as many believed she would. Instead, Cymbre came to believe that prophecies and destiny were not things to be relied upon. She believed that all beings had agency and the ability to forge their own destinies.
Using the royal contacts she had made growing up, Cymbre took it upon herself to amass an army made up of all the noble races of Valorous. With Cymbre’s leadership, the Dark Lord’s army of trolls was vanquished at the Battle of Hellscape. The Dark Lord met Cymbre in single combat atop the Bloody Keep. The fight, according to the bards, was epic. Cymbre was injured many times over, but managed to defeat the Dark Lord, killing him with a dagger to the heart.
Cymbre became the de facto ruler of Valorous. Eventually, she was chosen in the Realm’s first democratic elections.
For many years Cymbre ruled the land. Prosperity and happiness returned to Valorous, just when it seemed as if all hope had been lost.
C When Jake made that fart joke back on Earth, time in Valorous, by pure chance, sped even faster. Had the sword come back before the joke, it would have come to Cymbre during the solar eclipse as prophesied. However, in the time it took for the other occupants of the locker room to be thoroughly disgusted, ten years rolled by in Valorous. In this time, as was previously mentioned, Cymbre disregarded the idea of destiny and, using her own agency, created a realm of peace and prosperity.
When Jake and the others did return to Valorous, they ran into Cymbre’s cousin, Ben. He was the leader of the Religion of the Sword, which worshipped the Flying Sword God.
For years, as Valorous’s fortunes rose, Ben had been jealous of the affection given to his cousin. The religion, which had been in place for a hundred years, became an all-consuming obsession to him. He believed—or some might say, he wanted to believe—that the Flying Sword God was still going to come, and that the prophecy had been wrong about the Chosen One being a woman. He preached this in secret, stirring up religious malcontents who believed the new world that Cymbre had created was wicked and sinful. They wanted to see the leader of their religion crowned, instead of having immoral elections that gave whoremongers, drunkards, elves, dwarves, and blue men power equal to that of the most devout men.
Seven years into Cymbre’s rule, the Venerable Sword made its return. Ben, who had been waiting and watching for its return, was the first to arrive and take possession of the legendary sword.
In a ceremony in the capital, Cymbre was to knight several blue men who had vanquished one of the last remnants of the Dark Lord’s vassals, a dark wizard and his orange tabby cat. The ceremony was to be held outside the castle gates in front of an adoring crowd.
During the ceremony, Ben stood and dramatically unsheathed the Venerable Sword. He told the crowd that he had witnesses who would corroborate his story that the Flying Sword God himself had appeared near the Great Oak and given the sword to him.
Cymbre was captured in a surprise attack by several religious zealots, and Ben decapitated her with the sword and declared himself the King of the Realm. His authority, given to him by the Flying Sword God, and backed up by his army of true believers, would be used to drive sin and sinners out of Valorous using whatever means necessary.
So it goes.
Xop
Xop’s home realm was gorgeous. It reminded Harris of pictures he had seen of the Scottish Highlands. Rolling green hills rose up between timbered valleys under a bright blue sky.
The portal had opened up on the top of one of the green hills. The view stretched out for miles in every direction.
“Did we get it right, Xop?” Marian asked. “Is this your home?”
“Yes,” he squeaked. “Thank you.”
Xop had told them his realm was named Edenirvana-La. It took several tries to arrive at the right place, due in part to Xop’s adorable speech impediment.
Down in a nearby valley, dozens of flying creatures similar to Xop flew busily around.
“So this beautiful place is where you live, huh?” Harris said.
“Yep.”
“What do your. . . people call themselves?”
“Floths.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“And when we conjure you, we take you away from here, away from your friends and family, right?”
“Yep.”
“They don’t tell you this stuff in school. I always imagined that imps were some magical, maybe even evil, entities from some other plane of existence or something. But we’re basically just pulling slaves from another world. We’re ripping whoever we’re conjuring out of their worlds to be at our every whim.”
Xop nodded.
Harris turned to Marian. “What good, besides meeting Xop and Xim, has ever come from conjuring?”
“None,” Marian stated matter-of-factly. “It’s something that has been bothering me for a while, too. But it’s been so long since I’ve done an actual conjuring that I got caught up in the Site and the big project.” Marian shook her head. “It’s not right.”
“It’s not what I want to be.”
“Me neither,” Marian said. “Let’s transfer out of the Conjuring Department. Now that Eddie is gone and the big, stupid project is done, I have nothing tying me to that place. I could get us spots about anywhere else.”
“You could?”
“Yes. What about healing magic? After what Jake was able to do for me, I think that’s the field I’d like to be in. Something where I can make a real difference for people, you know?”
“That sounds perfect, actually. Is that possible?”
“Absolutely. Maybe we can help push it off-Site and into the real world?”
“I would love that.”
“Well, it’s settled, then.”
Harris and Marian shared a silent moment.
“Anyway, Xop, I brought a present for you.” Harris pulled off his backpack.
“What is it?”
“Hold on.” Harris unzipped his backpack, revealing several boxes of sugar cereal crammed in tight. “I’ll
bring you some more if you’d like me to, later?” He opened a box and shook it invitingly.
“Ceweal!” Xop scarfed down a couple handfuls of the box Harris had opened. “Thank you, Hawis!” Xop hugged Harris around the neck.
“Thank you, Xop, for everything. We definitely couldn’t have done all of this without you.”
“That’s right, Xop,” Jake said.
“Thank you, Xop,” Ana and Marian said at the same time.
Xop flew to all three of them of them and gave them each long, cuddly embraces.
Then he started to fly away.
When Harris was about to call out to him, he turned and waved Harris forward.
Harris did the classic, “Who me?” point to his own chest. When Xop nodded, Harris followed.
“Hawis,” Xop said when they were alone. “I know you like Ana.”
Harris’s face warmed immediately.
“And I think she likes you, too.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Why shouldn’t she? You’ve pwoven to Ana that you are a nice, bwave, and funny guy.”
“I don’t know about all of that.”
“But more importantly, you have to go for what you want in life. You have to step outside your comfort zone and twy. The worst she can say is ‘no,’ wight?”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. I’ve just never felt so strongly about a woman before.”
“Even more weason to go for it. . . . You went up against guawds, a dwagon, even a talking sandwich; this should be easy.”
“It’s not, though.”
“I know.” Xop patted him on the shoulder.
“All right. . . .”
The two of them returned to the group, who were laughing about Jake’s fart from earlier.
“Ana,” Harris said, all of the moisture in his mouth apparently having gone to his palms. “Could I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure.”
Harris wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Ana blush as well.
“What’s up?” she said when they had stepped aside.
“I was wondering. . . if you’d like to. . . maybe. . . get a drink or something with me. . . sometime?”
“Yeah,” Ana said. “Sounds good.”
“All right, then.” Harris was completely shocked at how well that had gone. “Should we—”
“Xop!” a loud voice preceded a flying baby sloth creature coming in hot.
“Xim!”
The two embraced each other, again.
Many other floths of all different colors flew up the hill to greet Xop. He spent several minutes hugging and cuddling countless little creatures.
“Everything seems so nice and peaceful, here,” Ana said. “What’s your secret, Xop?”
“Well, it’s not pohfect, and we don’t think we know it all or anything. But we do have a motto that evewy one of us twies to live by.”
“What is it?”
“Oon yulo ke la ondo,” Xop said, defying the translator rings somehow. “Je oon wa oop ot ka owoo.”
“What’s that mean?”
Xim took Xop’s hand.
“It means,” Xim said, “no one truly has this life figured out. Just don’t be shitty to each other.”
Epilogue
Those Who Fail to Learn
It had been a long, hot summer in the office. The hurdles to installing the air conditioner had been many. But now the stars had aligned: the correct paperwork, the correct tools, the correct signatures, everything had come together.
The maintenance man had even been approved for overtime to do the job.
He zipped up his coveralls to the top—it was early October and the chill was starting to bite a bit—and took a seat at the Conjurer’s empty table. Everyone had gone home early on a Friday and he wanted to have a quick snack before he got to work.
A small commotion came from one of the cubicles. He followed the noise to a cubicle labeled as Susan’s. When he peeked over the wall, he saw a middle-aged woman making out with a sparkly, younger man.
“Oh!” the woman said, jumping up when she’d seen him peeking over.
She grabbed the sparkly guy by the hand and led him away in a hurry. “You didn’t see a thing!” she called back to the maintenance man.
“Wow,” the man said to himself.
A green-headed duck shot up from the next cubicle over and flew out the front door in a flash. The maintenance man glanced into the cubicle. On the desk was a white sheet of paper with the imprint of two webbed feet stamped on it in black ink.
He shook his head, took a candy bar out of his pocket, and sat back down at a table in the middle of the cubicles.
Ineffable pain and madness comes to those who ignore my fetid corpse. I have dreamed over eons of the time when I would be awakened. Do not deny your dark impulse to conjure me!
“Huh?” the maintenance man scanned the room, searching for the demonic voice he’d just heard, but at the same time knowing that it had come from inside his head.
After about a minute of uneasy silence, he unwrapped his candy bar and took a bite.
He looked over a mess of papers scattered over the table. One said:
Lessons Learned
*We need better protections
(On-the-job training?)
*We need more protections
(Hire more Conjurers?)
*We need better binding
(i.e. Steve’s Binder Clip)(extend olive branch to Artifacts?)(share trophy???)(ice cream social???)
*We need more binding
(Hire more Conjurers, more runes)
Another paper read:
Conjuring a “Great Old One”
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Extremely Powerful
Possible horror on cosmic scale?
Not a dragon
Not motivated by money
Avoiding “ineffable pain”
Not being “obliterated”
The maintenance man didn’t get a chance to finish the long list of pros, because that voice of pure evil spoke up in his head, again.
Awaken me, or be obliterated!
The man jumped up, dropping what was left of his candy on the table.
“The hell with milking the clock,” he said to himself. “I’m gonna get the job done and get the hell outta here.”
He hurried to the panel and removed the four screws with his Phillips screwdriver.
He installed the part he had brought, slipping an ergonomically correct, soft rubber cover over a metal toggle switch.
He flipped the toggle switch from “Heater,” to “Air Conditioner.”
He replaced the panel and screwed in the four screws.
Then he bolted out of the building before the voice in his head could speak to him, again.
Once outside, he felt much better.
He felt the vague pride of a job finally done. It had been months in the making, with many bureaucratic hurdles, but now he had finished it. He’d even got himself a little overtime money to boot.
A magnificent sunset lay out before him. Beyond the security tower, wondrous brushstrokes of oranges and violets painted the western sky.
The glory of the sun’s setting made him feel that life was, in fact, beautiful and worth living.
Hello
In a shameless attempt to give the story a more dystopian flair, which seems to be all the rage these days, an alternate ending will now be presented. This alternate ending is based on a single idea: what if the Ring of Brocéliande, by some incomprehensible, but inarguably infallible Divine Providence, ac
tually made the dragon conjure-proof?
To partake in this alternate ending, please go back in your mind to the chapter titled The Amazing Disappearing Dragon. That chapter will now be replaced by a chapter called The Amazing Problem-Solving Dragon, and will continue from that point in the narrative.
The Amazing Problem-Solving Dragon
“You people are in luck,” the dragon continued. “You’ve got a polymath genius of a dragon right here in your country that has figured this all out for you. I have easy-to-implement, common-sense answers to the really big problems your city, your country, even your world, is facing. You’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, how did we not think of that?’ Poverty, hunger, climate change, inequality, war; I can fix all of these things if you’ll listen.
“You simply need—”
The dragon heard his name, his true name, given to him by his master, called across realms. Someone was trying to conjure him back to Titan, but it hadn’t worked. Why hadn’t it worked?
He looked down at the Ring of Brocéliande, which had changed size much like the One Ring to fit his pinky finger nicely, to find it glowing with a supernatural light.
“Well ho-ly shit,” he muttered to himself, “it did have magical powers after all.”
A wave of relief, millennia in the making, washed over the dragon. He was free, now. No more would he have to worry about whether or not his master was going to conjure him back to Titan at any minute. He was free to do whatever he wanted, for as long as he wanted, right here on Earth.
As Zoth-Avarex turned back to the crowd, an idea formed in his unfathomably fast and complex mind. He set Silvia down gently on the ground.
“You’re free to go, Princess.”
Silvia sprinted away without looking back.
The dragon sighed.
“So, as I was saying . . .”
He went on to give his easy-to-implement, common-sense answers to the really big problems the city, the country, and even the world were facing. “So that’s it,” he said when he was finished with the solutions. “And I was thinking. . . who better to implement these solutions than me?”
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex Page 19
