Without warning, the ground started to quake and they were cast about on the bridge. The horse whinnied, and Percy needed all of his skill to keep the frightened animal from bolting right into danger. When the ground finally stopped shaking, the trolls were practically upon them. Everett muttered another spell, and a brilliant sword appeared in his hand just as the first troll reached out at them.
Fighting from the back of the mighty wolf, the wizard engaged the two approaching trolls while Percy protected the rear against their rapidly advancing leader. Slashing and hacking at the oncoming trolls did little more than enrage them. Although each hack of a blade cut deep into their thick hides, the wounds continued to heal almost immediately.
Suddenly, Everett’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket and looked at it quickly. “It’s your mother.” He tossed it to Amanda.
“A flip phone?” she said in surprise. “This is ancient. You really need to upgrade.”
“I’ll look into is as soon as we get back.” he replied with a disapproving look.
Amanda cracked open the phone while holding the Grimoire awkwardly under her chin and trying not to fall from the back of the dancing horse. “Hi mom,” she said as brightly as she could.
“Hi A,”
“Hey Mom, how’s the protest?”
“It’s a protest. Y’know lots of sitting around waiting for something to happen. If it weren’t for the earthquakes, it’d be downright dull.”
“Earthquakes?”
“Ya, they say it’s the fracking equipment drilling too fast and too deep,” said El. Before Amanda could speak, she continued, “Look A’ I hate the way we ended things. I miss you guys so much.”
“Ya, I miss you too.”
“How are you settling in at the farm?” asked her mother.
“Things are ok. But I’m kinda busy now. I’m fighting trolls with Uncle Everett, Percy, and Trevor.”
“Percy eh?”
Amanda could practically hear a hovering helicopter in the background, “Yes mom, he’s very nice boy,”
“Is he the boy you texted me about? The one in the army?”
“Yes.”
“Oh Amanda! He’s too old for you. I know it all seems romantic that an older boy is interested in you. It’ll be exciting at first, because he’s 28 and your only 17. Everyone will tell you it’s wrong but you’ll tell them that they don’t understand. The next thing you know you’re pregnant and trying to finish your degree. But you’re strong and determined, so you go for it and get married.
Things struggle along because his chosen career path doesn’t pay well but it’s for a good cause so you work two jobs while acting like a single parent because he’s always off saving some bloody whales or something. Then you’re pregnant again and he comes home and tells you that it’s all too much for him and he has things that he needs to work out. But what he’s really saying is that he’s met some 18-year-old tart named Sierra who gets him and that he’s leaving you alone to raise two girls on a freelance journalist’s income.”
“Is this about you, or me mom?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“We’re way past that,” said Amanda.
“What do you mean? You haven’t had sex or anything? Have you?”
“No mom, don’t be gross. Look, I don’t have time to play shrink with you right now. We’re surrounded by trolls and I have to go.”
“Oh, my, not that live action role play. I guess you have to do something to pass the time. Don’t get too involved if you can help it,” suggested her mother.
“I’ll only get involved as much as I have to,” replied Amanda.
“Ok, I’ll let you go. Is Sarah there? Can I talk to her?”
“Not at the moment, she’s being held hostage by a dragon named Celestra. We’re on our way to rescue her,” replied Amanda.
“Oh! As long as she’s having fun,” said El.
“And mom, I’m sorry how we left things too. I really miss you and I can’t wait to see you…”
Before she could say another word, the connection between the world’s closed abruptly ending their call.
She pocketed the phone and flipped open the book. She had a thought she recalled the duckling she’s rescued; the whale song chittered with glee at the idea and a picture formed on one page with the words appearing next to it. She smiled.
“Nasty trolls I do foil,
by smothering you
with gobs of oil.”
It started, slowly. A few droplets of oil pulled from the water and the nearby land began to pelt the trolls with a fine mist. As the song rose in her head, the drops became heavier and thicker. The monsters’ movements became slower and they began to slip around on the gooey mess that was accumulating on and around them like wet snow in March.
As Amanda concentrated on the incantation, the oil fell faster and poured on them in a thick steady rain of tar until they were waist deep in the heavy gunk. . The thick black sludge continued to fall from the sky until all three trolls were covered
up to their necks and unable to move. Everett, Percy, and Trevor
were spared much of the slick black deluge but not all of it. All of them were painted from head-to-toe, with a black film of oil.
“Quickly,” said the wizard. “We should go.” They hurried past the lone troll and onward towards the lake. Everett scooped the medallion off from around his neck with the tip of his sword as they passed.
More Quakes
The phone call unsettled El almost as much as the last quake. “Did she really hear a horse whiny in the background?” she thought to herself.
The crack in the ground had widened now, and other cracks started to appear on the shale wall. They closed like the first, but the healing was slower now. “Healing,” was the only word that she could think of when trying to describe it in her notes. Brigit was still on her trail, mimicking her actions at every opportunity. She’d started carrying a little notebook and even had a sharpie tucked away stylishly down the front of her pink tank top.
Her phone rang. “El Applewood,” she said professionally.
It was the newspaper.
Brigit only heard one side of the conversation. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell. Thank you for getting back to me. Yes, I’ve looked over your submission guidelines.”
A pause. “That really isn’t scale Mr. Maxwell. I’m sure that I could find another outlet that would be interested.”
Another pause. She laughed. “Yes, I’ve done a bit of haggling before, you have to nowadays,” she chuckled humbly.
Another pause. “That sounds better. Yes, I can get you an outline by the end of the day.”
Another pause. “Send over the agreement, and I’ll look it over.”
“Yes, I think that I could get you more than one piece. There’s something else that I’ll gladly share with you if we can come to terms,” she said casually, the tone of her voice having shifted from stern negotiator to cordial colleague between breaths.
“Thank you. Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you too.” She hung up and looked at Brigit. She
could tell that the cunning girl had taken in a lot of that
conversation and she quietly admonished herself for having let her guard down.
El excused herself and went back to her car. She drove back up the road to the approaching ridge where she’d first seen the drilling equipment. After pulling off onto a side road, she attached her most powerful lens to her camera and walked a short distance to the edge of a cliff where tourists had, in the time before the industrialization, pulled over to make out, or to capture beautiful photos of the surrounding landscape. She used the camera lens’ powerful magnification as a telescope to inspect each and every drill. A single installation caught her attention.
It was close to a steep ridge and clearly larger than any of the drills in the area. Dozens of huge yellow construction vehicles lumbered around on the cleared land at the recently started facility. It was a
least three times the size of other drills in the area, and by El’s estimation, it was the largest she’d ever seen. It was similar in design to the massive drill from North Dakota that was deemed to be too large to operate safely.
As she took pictures, she looked down to see a bright pink scooter coming up towards her along the highway. The scooter pulled over, and the rider took off a large pink helmet with a full-face visor. Brigit had followed her. Gazing out over the land, she asked El casually.
“What are we looking at?”
“Just getting some perspective,” said El.
“Oh,” she said.
Brigit looked out over the field of wells. “You know Rick says that ginormous well over there is operating illegally. He said that the inspectors from the environment ministry were over there yesterday and told them to shut it down. They threatened to fine them over its use if they didn’t stop drilling. But as soon as the inspectors left, they started it up again. He says that the only way to shut it down is to go ‘North Dakota’ on it.”
El turned on her, “If you’re stupid enough to get involved
with that sort of thing, then I hope you’ll enjoy prison. Because that’s where you’ll end up.”
Brigit gave her a ‘Whatever’ look, mounted her scooter and headed back to the camp.
-----
While El and Brigit were up on the ridge, Rick was away from camp with some of his more fervent followers. They were in a long steel shed at the back of a farm less than an hour’s drive away. They wore gas masks to cover their faces and to protect themselves from the fumes emanating from the large pots that were simmering over electric burners. Hundreds of assorted empty bags of fertilizer lay scattered about, and drums marked diesel fuel were stacked haphazardly against the far wall.
“How long?” asked Rick.
“The detonators are ready, and this is the last batch,” said the cook. “We could go tonight if you wanted.”
“The truck?”
He led them to a corner of the shed. They pulled off a tarp revealing a rusty worn cube van.
“Where did you get it?”
“Rolled it out of a junkyard at 3 am the other night; no one will miss it. The motor is out of that heap.” he pointed to an old Dodge cop car with a missing front hood and an empty cavity where its V8 had been.
“Fire it up,” said Rick. Someone slid the back door open to allow the exhaust to vent.
The starter motor labored for several seconds before the engine caught. It ran roughly, sputtered and almost stalled but the driver tapped the gas pedal with a practiced foot and it gradually settled into a steady, but rough idle; black sooty exhaust poured out the tailpipe.
“Not very environmental,” laughed one of the men.
“It’ll serve the environment in another way,” said Rick.
“Do we have a driver?”
Rick smiled.
The Dragons Lair
They rode on until dark and camped by a lake. By firelight, Everett held out the medallion for Trevor to inspect. “Is that his mark?” asked the wolf.
Percy looked on. “I thought he was banished to your world.”
“He was,” said the wizard. “I walked him across the bridge myself.”
“Who?” asked Amanda.
“Uncle Rufus,” said the wolf.
“Who’s Uncle Rufus?” asked Amanda.
“He’s the Queen’s uncle,” said Percy. “He tried to seize the throne with the help of the g’blikens and some rogue houses but was defeated by his Eminence. It’s against our laws to imprison or execute a member of the royal house, so he was banished to your world.”
“He vowed to return and assume what he thinks is his rightful place as the King of Tarsinia,” explained Everett. “I tried to keep tabs on him, but he managed to slip away. The last I’d heard he was working in the mining industry to build himself a life in our world.”
“It would appear that he’s returned,” said the wolf.
They woke early and rode hard towards the high stone mountain home of Elkor. As they traveled, they couldn’t help notice that the lake reeked of petroleum and decay. A shimmering film of oil coated its surface, and as far as the eye could see, dead fish floated on its surface or lay rotting on its beaches. The air reeked of death and swarms of fat black flies as thick as a morning fog buzzed about everywhere. They wrapped cloth over their faces to keep the flies out of their mouths as they traced its shore to where they reached a tributary of oil that was
bubbling up through the sand forming a black stream that
trickled across the shore until it spread out over the water.
Fine cracks like you’d find in an old china cup, ran up the face of the igneous cliff as high as the eye could see. More black sludge bled from the wounds and oozed down its face, contaminating Tarsinia. Everett opened the Grimoire and saw nothing but blank pages.
“What do you see?” asked Amanda.
“Failure,” replied the wizard.
He handed her the book. She looked at the blank pages.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“It means that it can’t be fixed by magic,” he said sadly.
“I have an idea.” He looked out over the water and cast a spell. The oil cleared. He cast another spell and the fish littering the shore burst into flames. He looked back at the rocks, and like a conductor of an orchestra, he waved his hands. A trough of stone rose up from the shore forming a barrier to collect the oil before it polluted the lake.
“How long will that last?” asked Percy.
“Days maybe, no longer,” replied the wizard.
With a renewed sense of urgency, they set off towards the high cliffs where Elkor had his lair. It was afternoon when they crested the ridge and approached the foreboding entrance to the cavern.
“Should we knock or something?” asked Amanda.
“He knows we're here. He's just being coy,” said the wolf.
Percy removed the tack, hobbled the horse and hung a bag of feed on her muzzle. He slipped his sword in and out of its scabbard several times to make sure that it wouldn’t stick if he needed it in a hurry.
Everett looked on. “I’m not sure that will much use against a dragon.”
“It was plenty of use against Celestra,” remarked Amanda protectively.
They were barely a handful of steps into the mouth of the
cave when then air exploded with sound. “You are brave to enter my lair,” said the voice. The walls trembled and they were forced cover their ears.
The echoes gradually faded as they continued deeper into the vast cavern. Soon, the daylight from the entrance lost its battle with the overwhelming darkness before them. Everett cast a spell and baubles of light appeared, circled several times and then floated ahead like fireflies, showing them the way. The hovering gems suddenly scattered in an attempt to fill a vast cavern with light. At the apex of their flight, they resembled distant stars in the night. Everett commanded them again, and they returned to orbit the foursome.
“Elkor your magnificence, a word if I may,” said the wizard.
“So polite,” said the dragon. “I’ve never had a meal be so cordial.” The air vibrated like the inside of a bass drum.
Without including her tail, Celestra was as long as a subway car and her horned skull was larger than the biggest carnivorous dinosaur to have ever roamed the Earth. She was puny when compared to Elkor. He was as long as a train, and his head was as big as a small building. When he flapped his wings, he created a wind that could be felt beyond the horizon. When he landed, the ground broke beneath him. When he flew, which was rare, he affected the weather. He was as old as Tarsinia and would live as long as it did.
The dragon’s massive head appeared from one of the caverns. Amanda strained to see the entirety of the beast, but it disappeared into the darkness. As he neared, his hot breath forced them to step back.
“You have my niece,” said the wizard. “I’ll have her back.”
&nbs
p; “There are no humans here,” said the dragon. “Celestra has taken her and fled to another sanctuary.”
“Why did she take her?” asked wizard.
“She’s impetuous,” said the great beast. “She was certain that if she took your niece, you’d come.”
“How did she know we were coming?” demanded Amanda.
“I’m afraid that things are set in motion that are beyond your control my young magician,” said the dragon.
“If she only wanted me to clean up this contamination then I would have come at her request,” said Everett.
“The contamination is a byproduct of plans that are in motion. He has promised his followers that it will pass,” said the dragon matter-of-factly.
“He? Rufus?”
“Yes, he has promised to stop the men who fish in our lake, who dig for gold in our mountains. He has promised us much that the Queen has denied, so Celestra has joined the army.”
“Army!?” exclaimed everyone.
“His army,” replied the dragon. “The false king is even now trying to return to Tarsinia.”
“But the gate is sealed against him,” said the wizard.
“Yours is not the only magic in Tarsinia wizard.”
“He’ll betray you in the end, you know that.”
“It matters not to me. I have been here since the creation of this world and will remain to witness its final breath.”
“Will you at least tell where his army is assembling?” insisted Everett.
The dragon let out a disinterested sigh. “Very well, it is amassing on the great plain, where Carvalis defeated Arkadamus and forced him to retreat to his fortress.” replied the dragon.
“You need to warn the Queen,” said Amanda.
“But we need to find Sarah first.”
“You can’t be in two places at once. Percy and I can get Sarah. You go to the Queen and do your Grand Wizard thing.”
“But Amanda…”
“Uncle Everett, I’ve got this, and besides, we don’t need to find Sarah, Elkor is going to take us to her.”
“Take you?” roared the dragon. “Why would I take you
Amanda Applewood and the Return of the False King: An Everworld Book Page 21
