Confessions of a Dork Lord

by Mike Johnston

  MOANDAY

  We got new rooms at the academy, so I didn’t have to sleep in the same place as Storey. But everything was still made of ice, so it really wasn’t much of an improvement. And One Eye assigned a guard named Icejaw to watch over me. He stood outside my door and generally made certain I didn’t try to escape or skip school.

  I was a prisoner at Nightshadows North. But I have to admit, I was kind of excited for my second day of class. I couldn’t wait to hit the books. I hoped we’d learn some advanced kennings. I figured I could use them to hide all the bad stuff I planned to say when I got back to the Grimhold. I’d have bet even Bob Ogreson might enjoy a bit of it. Maybe I could just skip the whole Operation Dark Lord thing. I pictured myself as the Master of Kennings, with every grimmie asking me for creative ways to describe really gross stuff.

  I even thought of two or three good ones while the guard led me to our classroom. When the door opened, I was so excited I went up to the professor and asked him about the day’s lesson. In my experience, instructors like it when students ask questions—they call it “taking initiative.” I do it sometimes just to make them feel important. This time I meant it. I really did want to learn more about The Prose Giganta. But Cold Hands (that’s what everyone called our professor) pretty much stomped on my excitement.

  “Yesterday was the first day of our new year. We call it Prose and Poetry Day. Nightshadows North celebrates it once every three hundred and sixty-five days. You’re welcome to come back next year, but you’ll probably be dead by then.”

  He said it just like that, “You’ll probably be dead by then.” Gotta say, the giants are a cold bunch. Literally and figuratively. I confirmed it when he shook my hand. Professor Cold Hands’s cold touch nearly froze my fingers off, so at least I learned how he got his name.

  My fingers were still frozen from the handshake as I sat down at my ice desk. Storey showed up right around then and settled into the seat next to me.

  “Today, we resume our study of mathematics,” Professor Cold Hands said, handing out a surprise quiz just to get things started. Like everything else at Nightshadows North, the “quiz” wasn’t exactly what I expected. As I’ve said, the frost giants tend to do things in a big way. A massive, mind-bogglingly big way. The test paper was large enough that I could have folded it up, climbed inside, and taken a nap. And it was covered in so many questions, I thought it might take days to complete.

  “How long do we have with the quiz, Mr. Cold Hands?” I asked.

  “Two days minimum,” he said. “It’s just a quiz.”

  Now, we all know a pop quiz should not last for TWO DAYS. But apparently, for the frost giants, a real test required a week or two to complete. So things could have been worse.

  Still, Nightshadows North wasn’t quite the happy place I had hoped it would be. That was when I decided I wasn’t cut out to be a giant. Let’s face it. Even the warlocks think I’m short.

  Halfway through the quiz, my thoughts drifted back to Operation Dark Lord. I’d traveled to the snow-covered mountains to seek out the scepter, but it wasn’t here. And I had no way to find the thief while I was trapped in Nightshadows North. Also, I was probably going to die a terrible death as soon as One Eye made up his mind. But that might take months.

  So in the meantime, while I waited for my unjust demise, I took a two-day-long math quiz.

  WORMSDAY

  To give us more time to finish the quiz, our professor extended the school day to twenty hours. The giants served us meals while we tested, and that guard scowled at me each time I asked to visit the frost toilet. It must have been midnight on the second day when I finally finished the last question. Icejaw led me back to my room, and I collapsed on the ice bed.

  A few hours later, I woke to the usual sound of the guard’s knocking. After two days of testing, I’d hoped to take some time off from school, but just like every other day, Icejaw served me a half-frozen feast and walked me to class.

  Cold Hands said we’d be working on our new study guides. Apparently, the class was preparing for a quest. I thought I was already on a quest, but they were talking about something totally different. To the frost giants, a quest is halfway between a quiz and a test. So the roll of parchment Cold Hands put in MY hands was double the size of the “little” quiz from two days before—big as a cave and long as a giant’s legs. It was official: The fun was over. This school actually made me miss Nightshadows Central. Although I bet Nightshadows North is still better than our sister school in the east where they send the dragons. I bet the students there have to write on stone tablets just so the little dragons don’t vaporize their tests every time they get a bad grade.

  Storey spent the morning ripping her study guide into little pieces and scribbling away in her “secret journal,” ignoring the professor and pretty much everyone else in the room. Cold Hands said she wasn’t “respecting the school.” So he sent Storey to her room, and she seemed pretty happy about that. I considered doing something disruptive so I could escape the class too. But I still had my pocket guide, Minor Vanishings and How to Dismiss Them, so I memorized some spells instead. And this time I made certain to learn all of the incantations’ physical components. I was determined to get those silly wrist twists right.

  When class let out, the guard led me back to my bedchamber. A short while later, my meal arrived frozen, just as it always did. So I had to chew each bite until it thawed. And to make matters worse, I think Storey had the room above mine. I could hear her scratching away at the walls with her overgrown sword. I guess the giants didn’t consider her much of a threat; otherwise, they would have taken that blade. Personally, I kinda wished they had nicked the sword. Her scraping made so much noise I had to put my noseplugs in my ears just to drown out the sound. I was still determined to learn some magic, and there was nothing else to do in my cell, so I cracked open the pocket guide and read.

  It must have been well after midnight when I finished the last page of Minor Vanishings and How to Dismiss Them. It turned out to be a pretty good read. I’d learned all sorts of ways to make things appear and disappear. Too bad it was the only book I’d taken from the archive that day. I wished I’d grabbed one with a spell that would teleport me back to the Grimhold. But I’d panicked when I saw Wormfinger. I’d been so worried about being caught that I’d just run. I hadn’t even stopped to consider what HE was doing in the archive . . .

  But what HAD he been doing? While I was searching for high-level spells, Wormfinger was obviously doing his own research. He’d had one of the Dark Lord biographies, which meant he was studying our grim leaders or their magic. Could he have been looking for information on the scepter? I had to admit, it was a possibility. After the theft, I’d been so focused on the frost giants that I’d totally dismissed Wormfinger. But when I thought back to that day, the biography wasn’t the only suspicious part of his visit to the archive. When I saw him, he was pulling a tome from the teleportation and disappearance section. He could have used one of those spells to steal the scepter . . . and he might be using that Dark Lord history to decode the scepter’s magic!

  The more I thought about it, the more the pieces fit together. Wormfinger could definitely be a suspect. So why had I overlooked him? Was I too proud of my warlock heritage? Maybe I just didn’t want to think a fellow spell caster would steal the scepter. But as we all know, Wormfinger was descended from a Dark Lord, or at least the in-law of one. Maybe he and Rats thought it was time for their family to regain the title?

  Ten long years had passed since the Dark Lord vanished. And the elves were gathering at our border. It was clear that we needed a leader. Had Wormfinger decided to step in and take the throne?

  In truth, I didn’t know. All I had was a theory. And let’s face it, I’d been wrong before, so I didn’t want to rush to any conclusions. When I got back to the Grimhold, I’d need to do a little investigating. I’d have to make certain Wormfinger wa
s guilty before I accused him of anything. I had work to do, but I was still locked in an oversized ice cube, dining on frigid feasts, and slowly freezing to death while I waited for One Eye to make up his mind. If I wanted to catch Wormfinger, I’d need to bust out of Nightshadows North. And that wasn’t going to be easy with an eighty-foot-tall giant named Icejaw standing outside my door.

  What I needed was a rescue. But I hadn’t told anyone where I’d gone. Gorey had sent Storey and the ogres, but he didn’t know where I’d taken them. As far as I knew, I was on my own and trapped in a windowless cell made of ice. I felt like screaming, which seemed a little silly. Then I remembered something.

  Hal had once told me he could hear his name spoken from the far side of the earth—his ears were that sharp. I’d thought he was just joking around or trying to impress me, but I was so desperate, I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

  So I screamed, “HAAAAAAAAA”—cough—“LLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIII”—breathe—“TOSIS”—wheeze.

  I waited for the dragon to appear, to hear him roar his mighty roar, but he didn’t show.

  Let’s face it. Dragons are lazy . . . and Hal? He was the laziest dragon I’d ever met.

  MOANDAY

  I decided to give the dragon one more chance before giving up on him. I doubted Hal would head straight here, anyway. He might spend a day nodding off on some mountain peak or a night curled in a forgotten cavern. Maybe he was taking the scenic route?

  I wasn’t worried, not at first. But after two days came and went, I started to doubt Hal. I pictured him asleep in the forest outside the castle. Maybe he got lost? Even so, I was determined not to lose faith.

  But today, on the fifth day, I finally lost all hope.

  I’d suffered through a week at Nightshadows North. We had a pop quiz that was so long we had to skip midday feast. We tested from sunrise to sundown. My classroom wasn’t a school or even a prison—it was a torture chamber.

  As I wrote down the last answer, I slipped from behind my desk and made my way out of the classroom. I limped back to my room and closed the door to find yet another frozen feast waiting for me on the table. I’d broken a tooth on last night’s meal, so I decided to skip this one. Instead of dining, I lay awake on my bed of ice.

  The castle was quiet. The ice owls had ceased their hooting, and the giants had all gone to sleep. Even Storey had stopped scraping at the walls of her chamber. I was cold and completely alone. And with nothing else to consider, my thoughts returned to Operation Dark Lord and my mission to find the stolen scepter. I needed to find a way out of the frost giants’ castle. I’d put my faith in Hal, but he’d let me down. Storey was trapped here too, so she was no use. And I had no way to sneak past the guard. I was ready to give up and face the facts. I might not find the scepter. Worse yet, possibly, if I didn’t rise up and claim the throne, the elves would conquer my kingdom and the last traces of my mom and dad and everything they’d accomplished would be gone. The more I thought about it, this was the end of it all. I was utterly alone . . . And in my grief, I did something I hadn’t done in years: I called out to my parents.

  If the scepter was out there, the essence of my parents’ magic was out there too. And even though they’d never answered me in the past, I knew this time was different. I’d reached rock bottom.

  “Are you out there? Mom? Dad?” I waited for a reply. And, just like every other time, I didn’t get one. My heart sank. I wondered if the scepter had been destroyed. Were they gone forever? I didn’t know, but I refused to give up. I needed help. My life was on the line. So I closed my eyes and pictured my parents. I imagined that painting of the Dark Lord in the throne room, and I focused every bit of attention I had on it. I screwed my eyes shut and called out their names.

  Still there was nothing. No smoke. No thunder or flame.

  So I called again, raising my voice just a bit. Then I cried out once more, a little louder and more forcefully. Then at last I hollered with every ounce of strength I had left in me. I didn’t care who heard me or how silly I sounded.

  A minute passed, maybe two, then I felt an odd chill. The ice cell had gone a degree colder. A trickle of hope washed over me. Had my parents heard me?

  “Mom? Dad?” I asked.

  All of a sudden, the brilliant white walls of the room turned to crimson, and that drop of hope blossomed into a near flood of anticipation. Once more, I didn’t care who heard me. “DAD! MOM!” I cried.

  Silence. A dark aura crept over the room, and something grim stirred inside of me. I was in the presence of complete and utter maleficence. My heart was a hammer in my chest, and I sweated like I was on fire. The room glowed with an eerie red light. And in that bloodred gloom, a gray smoke filtered in through every crack and crevice in my bedchamber. But it wasn’t like normal smoke. It didn’t rise into a cloud. It eddied and swirled, coalescing into two shimmering figures—a man and a woman. The smoke whirled one last time, and the details of their hands and faces came into focus. But it wasn’t until the eyes settled into place that I finally saw my parents. They’d heard my call! After ten years, the Dark Lord and Dark Lady had returned.

  Almost instantly, my mouth went into overdrive. Smoke parents can’t hug you, but they CAN speak. So before they could say anything, I asked them every question I’d stored up over the last decade: “Where were you? And what have you been doing all this time? Do you watch over me? Are you always around, or did you just return? I mean, what do you guys do in your spare time? Do you rule over ghosts, or have you lost all your power? Everyone says you disappeared into a cloud of smoke, so are you ghosts or smoke or smoke ghosts?”

  “Slow down, son. We’re not ghosts,” my dad said. “We’re not even dead. We are what remains of your parents, the essence of their magic, kept alive by the power we stored in the Scepter of Ultimate Darkness. Most of the time that magic has no form or body. In fact, we only saved a fragment of our magic, so we had to choose the right moment to return. We wanted to make certain you were old enough to understand what we told you.”

  Well, that definitely explained why they’d ignored my previous attempts to contact them. I forgave them instantly. They’d come when it mattered most. And they were finally here, so I tried to make the most of it.

  Almost immediately, I noticed that Dad didn’t look or sound like a grim and terrible ruler, and he wasn’t six foot ten. In fact, he looked and talked a lot like me. His voice was calm and filled with honesty. He seemed to want to answer the rest of my questions, but Mom took the conversation in a totally different direction.

  “You’re taller!” she exclaimed, and I had to remind her that a warlock does tend to grow a bit between the ages of two and twelve. “And your hair’s a mess! Aren’t you a bit skinny? Have the giants been feeding you? I taught Gorey how to make your favorite: eel soup. I do hope he’s following my recipe correctly . . . You have to wait to add the eels until AFTER the roux has thickened.”

  I hadn’t known eel soup was my favorite. I guess that’s why Gorey always made it. And it was my mom who’d taught him the recipe! I wished she’d taught him a few other ones . . . I’d had almost nothing but eel for the last decade.

  “Son,” my dad said, “we can’t stay here for very long. Time is short, so I can’t answer all your questions. There are things you need to know. Knowledge that’ll be important to your future.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “I’m terrible at spell casting, and no one believes I’ll be the next Dark Lord. I’ve only got two friends.” It was humiliating, but I thought they ought to know the truth about my situation.

  “That’s not surprising, son,” my dad said. “You see, most warlocks learn their magic by studying books. They memorize words and learn all the ways to move their fingers. That’s one kind of magic, and it takes decades to master it. But we use a different kind of power. Didn’t you ever wonder why the son of the Dark Lord couldn’t cast the Fart Revealer?�
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  “Yeah, it’s pretty much all I think about,” I said.

  Dad nodded his head, but I saw Mom shoot him a disapproving glance. “We don’t have much time, so tell him the answer. Hurry.”

  “Oh yes. Wick, you’re a natural warlock. You’re never going to find your power in any book. You can learn those spells, but they’ll never be the real source of your strength. You’ve already got that inside of you. All you need to do is focus and believe in your ability, and you can cast any spell you want. You inherited that power from me, and even in this ghostlike body, I can tell you’ve got the ability. You just need to find it, which is why I ordered Gorey to make certain you were given no special privileges.”

  “What? Why?” I asked. “I mean, it’s made things kind of difficult for me.”

  “Exactly. My dad forced me to suffer the same humiliation. But it helped me discover my true power, so I assumed it would do the same for you. When I was your age, I didn’t have a lot of friends and the ogres were always picking on me, calling me names. I was terrible at spell casting. So even the other warlocks didn’t respect me—especially Garandash. He used to pull pranks on me all the time. One time, he took things too far and convinced a dozen ogres to toss me out of a sky toilet. He said he was going to turn me into a ‘warlock turd.’ He didn’t. When they put my head in that toilet, I flipped. And I found my power. I conjured a fireball out of thin air and nearly roasted Garandash and half the ogres. Did you know his beard is fake? Garandash wears that twelve-foot-long rug because he’s totally bald. His hair never grew back after the fireball. My magic was that potent. Everyone respected me after the sky toilet incident. Later, I could call fire down from the sky and raise lava up from the earth. I led my followers to the chamber, walked through that wall of flame, and became the Dark Lord.”