by Heide Goody
“Not that kind of seal!” Maegor yelled, totally losing his cool and breaking the first rule of how to deal with a hostile crowd.
“If he just called himself master of scrolls or something similar, it would avoid all this confusion,” Pagnell whispered to Cunnan.
“There’s going to be trouble,” said the old sailor turned lord admiral.
Chrindle put her hand on her sword hilt.
“This doesn’t have to end in violence,” said Pagnell. “Let’s see what they want.”
Chrindle was about to offer some comment and then saw the bundled dragon egg Pagnell was carrying.
“What the hell is that?”
“Toothpaste ingredients,” he said.
“Who would you declare as king then?” Maegor shouted at the crowd. He probably meant it to sound mocking and belittling but the little priest took it as an honest enquiry.
“The saviour of the city!” the priest said.
The crowd cheered.
“The hero of the people!”
Another cheer.
“The one…”
Cheer!
“… the only…”
Cheer!
“… Brad Bowman!”
The crowd clapped and whooped and hollered and parted to let a young man through. He was tall, athletic and handsome with a shock of blond hair that shone like gold. He wore clothes that would have been traditional huntsman garb except they were clean and finely woven and dyed an expensive vibrant green. He had a quiver of arrows over his shoulder and a longbow in his hand. He regarded the thanes and the privy council coolly and then tossed his head to throw his beautiful hair back. If ever there was a hero of the city then this young man certainly looked the part.
Maegor whirled on Pagnell, wild-eyed.
“You said he didn’t exist! You made him up!”
“We’ve all heard the songs,” said the priest. “We all know what this young man did for the city.”
“The arrow did fly and struck the dragon true! The beast turned tail and away it flew!” sang a woman’s voice from the midst of the crowd. Pagnell knew that voice. Everyone in the city knew the voice of Lady Forge.
“And some of us we were lucky enough to see him in action,” said the priest.
“You?” said Cunnan. “You saw him?”
“Not me specifically but my friend, Hotpot, said his brother saw the fateful arrow fired.”
“My sister’s neighbour’s mam saw it all!” shouted a voice from the crowd.
“My uncle two streets over was there and watched Brad wrestle the beast!” shouted another.
“Wrestle it?” said Chrindle.
“My uncle saw it!”
“Aye, and the baker’s boy’s blind grandma!” shouted another.
“Ain’t she blind?”
“But she ‘eard it!”
The crowd erupted with competing claims of who had best witnessed the heroics of Brad Bowman.
“What the hell is happening?” Chrindle hissed at Pagnell.
“Our plan worked too bloody well!” said Cunnan. “We promised the city a hero…”
“But he’s a figment of the wizard’s imagination,” said Chrindle and then gasped. “You said, you said wizards turned up unexpectedly and…” She gasped again. “He’s magicked Brad Bowman out of his head into reality!”
Pagnell, who recognised that shock of blond hair, and knew that a good bath and a clean set of clothes could work wonders, looked around for Jynn and saw the lord treasurer and most enterprising thief in the city, loitering by a balcony, away from the centre of attention. A smile danced at the corner of his mouth, faintly, invisible to any who weren’t looking for it.
Pagnell sidled over to him.
“This is your doing,” he said.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jynn happily. “Although, it was you who suggested we put a dummy on the throne.”
“That’s one of the castle staff, not a dummy.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. The boy’s under strict instructions to keep his mouth shut. Good kings know when to keep their mouth shut.”
“It’s not the sole requirement!”
“No, but if they’ve also got sound financial backing and a wise advisor beside them…”
Maegor and the priest were arguing in an undignified manner in the centre of the room. The crowd of city folk were throwing in their jibes and heckles as they saw fit. The thanes were slowly waking to the fact that they might soon have a new king and it wasn’t going to be any of them.
Red Salka, thane of the far north, climbed onto a trestle table, kicked aside a dish that happened to be in her way and shouted at the assembled crowd. She was not a large woman, did not have a loud voice but there was something about the young flamed-haired lass with a steely gaze that drew folks’ attention.
“People! Gromishmen! This is no way to behave! You cannot march in here and declare that this man is your king!”
“We have!” shouted someone, emboldened by the fact that they were somewhere near the back and couldn’t be seen.
“Kings and queens are drawn from the long lines of the noble houses of the land! I have my titles because my father held them before me and his father before him and all the way back to Bon the Builder.”
“And how did he get to be a lord, eh?” said the priest. “By taking the lands from the first men who settled the land.”
“And we’re taking the throne now!” shouted out another invisible voice.
“No, you can’t!” said Red Salka. “Because… because that was then and this is now. We’re more civilised now. We don’t do things like just take someone’s land because we’re stronger than them!”
“What about the war against the Grey Islands? That was only last year!”
“That’s different,” she said petulantly. “They’re foreigners so it’s okay.”
“You was foreigners too before you invaded this country!”
“Shockingly perspicacious for an unruly mob,” Pagnell said to Jynn, impressed.
“If you want a decent mob, you do have to pay for it,” said the lord treasurer.
“I really don’t think I could allow this to go ahead, all the same,” Pagnell said, apologetically. “Puppet kings with a kleptocratic power behind the throne aren’t good for a kingdom.”
Jynn’s smile broaden and Pagnell saw he had his dagger in his hand. Pagnell hadn’t even seen him draw it.
“You do use a lot of big words, wizard,” said Jynn, “but I don’t see how you’re going to stop me.”
“No, me neither,” said Pagnell but then, as the crowd set up a chant of “All hail King Brad! All hail King Brad!” all proceedings were interrupted by a bombastic roar from outside.
Being by the balcony, Pagnell and Jynn were the first to see but were soon joined by councillors, priests, would-be kings and phony kings and the politically motivated folk of the city. Below them, the solidified Turge River had erupted, the great plug of sewage exploding skywards in a pustulant and powerful fountain.
“By the gods!” exclaimed Jynn.
“Glasswort sudanum actually,” said Pagnell. “I did think it would be too powerful.”
The explosion had sent clods of excrement, great and small, hurtling hundreds of feet into the air and flying out in all directions.
“Watch out,” said Cunnan, drawing back into the cover of the crowd. “Some of it’s coming this way.”
Pagnell was fortunate enough to be able to step sideways into the shadow of a pillar. Others were less fortunate. Crud rained down on the castle walls. Jynn, who Pagnell recalled saying that having toilet slops thrown into the street kept the populace on their toes, clearly was out of practice. A clump of high velocity poo smacked him in the face, breaking his crooked nose and coating him in crap.
As he staggered about and the crowd behind moaned and wailed at the soiling they’d been subjected to, events continued apace down in the streets. With the plug ruptured, the
weight of the Turge headwaters and the lake that had being forming behind the dirty dam, forced their way through, carrying boulder-sized lumps of solid muck before it.
“Is that effluvium on fire?” said Chrindle.
“Ah,” said Maegor delighted that he was both untouched by the shower of dung and able to offer a scholarly view. “Human and animal excretion both produce marsh gases that when exposed to naked flame —”
“He’s lit the farts of the whole bloody city,” said Jynn miserably, prodding his bleeding nose.
The wave of rolling, flaming filth surged through the city along its old course. People ran from the on-coming tide of stink. Items that had been left on the river banks — carts, stacks of timber, piles of rubble, temporary stalls and tents — were picked up and carried with the mass.
“For a wizard who says he doesn’t do bangs and poppers,” said Cunnan, “that’s quite a sight.”
The fireball accelerated, smoke and steam billowing in its wake as the fresh river pursued it through Grome.
“Some of those buildings nearby…” said the dragon priest.
“There may be some collateral damage,” Pagnell conceded as the mighty mass of manure swept all before it.
“But the Temple of the Dragon…” said the priest.
“No,” said Jynn, pushing muck from his vision. “No, that’s not allowed. Please, gods, no…”
“But you’ve got insurance, haven’t you?” said Chrindle.
The wall of fecal force tore along the mud banks, eroding in an instant that which could have stood for another century. The flagstone before the Temple of the Dragon slipped into the froth, the foundations of the building itself giving way a moment later and the gold-plated statue of the dragon —
“Not the dragon!” wailed Jynn.
The statue toppled forward into ordure and flame and the boiling river and was gone without a fight. As the diminishing poo ball of fire moved on towards the harbour, the remains of the Temple of the Dragon, Jynn’s gilty side-business crumpled floor by floor, priests jumping for their lives from the windows, the more mercenary-minded clutching money bags as they did. All rolled into the River Turge. Pagnell (as best he could see from this distance) was relieved to note that priests, those unencumbered by gold at least, floated well enough.
Fire fizzled in the deep harbour and then went out.
Stunned silence prevailed on the balcony of the throne room, broken eventually by Brad the Bowman.
“Do I still get paid, Mr Jynn?” he asked.
Jynn made vigorous head-slicing and silencing gestures at Brad but the ruse was over.
Chrindle grabbed ‘Brad Bowman’ by the elbow. “You’re coming with me, sunshine.”
“I was only doing what I was told,” the boy sniffled.
“And I’m sure the lord treasurer can help us with our enquiries too,” said the master of horses darkly.
Jynn found himself suddenly surrounded by a half dozen thanes who had very nearly seen the throne that none of them wanted slip from their grasp. The crowd of Brad supporters, including the nasal priest, were doing their very best to slip away into the shadows.
“Hey,” grinned Jynn with determined affability, “I’m sure we can discuss this civilly. I’m sure there’s deal to be struck.”
He and his proxy king were hustled away by red cloaks.
“I knew that going into the god-faking ‘insurance’ business would end badly,” said Chrindle.
“The gods do move in mysterious ways,” said Maegor.
“As do wizards,” said Cunnan, winking at Pagnell and tapping the side of his nose.
“Oh,” said Pagnell. “No. Nothing to do with me.”
“Of course,” said the lord admiral with playful sarcasm. “Nothing to do with you. A wizard turning up just at the right moment. A wizard with no bangs or poppers.” He chuckled to himself.
“No. Really,” said Pagnell.
“That’s right, my lord,” said Cunnan and gave him yet another exaggerated wink and nose-top.
“He’s pretending,” said Chrindle to Cunnan. “Being all terribly humble when he’s just done some amazing magicks.”
“I know,” said the lord admiral. “Very wizardy thing that.”
Pagnell sighed. There was no convincing some people.
“It appears we owe you some sort of thanks,” said Maegor, in the tones of one who wasn’t really sure if this was the case but was prepared to go with the flow.
“Thanks. No. Nothing for me, except…”
He juggled the warm egg in his arms and pulled aside the shirt to reveal it to all.
“In the circumstances, it’s the least we can do,” said Maegor. “Our gift to you.”
There was a sharp crack. A jagged line had appeared along the exposed egg shell. Pagnell felt something roll and move inside the egg.
“A horse,” said Maegor. “We will also give you a horse. A fast one. Can you ride?”
“Er,” said Pagnell.
“A fine time to learn,” said the master of seals and with polite haste led him towards the door.
The Only Wizard in Town by Heide Goody & Iain Grant
A city under siege by a barbarian horde…
A band of ruthless mercenaries…
A trap-filled dungeon…
A situation like this calls for the best wizard in town.
What they’ve got is the ONLY wizard in town: Newport Pagnell, oral hygiene specialist.
More used to soothing fevered gums and extracting rotten teeth, this dental spellcaster has to perform an operation like never before: extracting a fabled treasure from the jaws of certain doom.
This time, he might have bitten off more than he can chew… .
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SJGH9FX
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SJGH9FX
