Dan the Barbarian

by Hondo Jinx

  Nor did Dr. Lynch hear Dan as he raced forward, rushing ahead silently in the way of his hunter-gatherer clan, drawing back his mighty two-handed sword and calling upon every ounce of his remarkable strength as he prepared to strike.

  Dr. Lynch spread her withered arms, speaking, telling the murderous crowd, “Three perfect sacrifices to hasten eternal darkness!”

  Dan swung Wulfgar in a powerful downward strike, nailing the necromancer at the crown of her hoary skull as Wulfgar roared, “Say goodnight, you filthy cock goblin!”

  The sword bounced away.

  Dan roared with surprise.

  It didn’t even make sense. He’d watched as the sword connected with the top of Lynch’s skull…

  Only it hadn’t.

  A hair’s width from her white hair, the blade had slammed into an invisible something and slipped away, never reaching the skull and throwing Dan off balance and into instant confusion.

  He’d had her dead to rights, with her back turned, completely unaware.

  But then, in a moment of dawning terror, he remembered.

  This world was based on T&T.

  A game where some creatures were so powerful that they could only be hit by special weapons.

  Magical weapons.

  And apparently that class of weapon did not include talking two-handed swords with no additional attack bonuses.

  Dr. Lynch spun to face him without even moving her legs. One second, she was facing away, not even flinching from his attack. Then she was facing him, her horrible face stretching into a terrible grin, paralyzing him with shock and fear and that awful breath, which rushed once more into his mouth and nose, making him gag and sputter.

  The inhuman red eyes flared, and Dr. Lynch cackled, recognizing him. “You,” she crowed. “So stupid!”

  Dan swung at her again and again, hacking and slashing, chopping and thrusting, but nothing slipped through her invulnerability, nothing touched her, nothing stopped her mocking laughter.

  Dr. Lynch’s bony hand shot out with inhuman speed, grabbed hold of Wulfgar’s blade, and ripped the sword from Dan’s grasp.

  “You thought you could harm me–me–with this ridiculous sword?”

  “Who you calling ridiculous, you dried up old—”

  Dr. Lynch snapped Wulfgar in half, and the bellowing voice of Dan’s mentor sliced off into the silence of death.

  “No!” Dan screamed, and grabbed her throat, meaning to finish her with his bare hands, determined to snap her scrawny neck and rip the cackling head from her wasted body.

  But her flesh was cold.

  So cold, so very cold.

  As soon as Dan’s fingers touched Dr. Lynch’s throat, his entire body seized, rigid with paralysis. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream…

  Dr. Lynch wheezed laughter, shaking her shriveled head with disdain. “So stupid,” she hissed one more time. Then she plunged a bony hand into his chest, tearing effortlessly through bone and muscle.

  The last thing that Dan heard was Holly’s cries in the distance as Dr. Lynch’s icy fingers closed around his heart and ripped it from his body, killing him instantly.

  57

  All Is Lost

  Dan woke to the sound of a tremendous crash. Shards of glass flew everywhere. Surprised voices cried out.

  Looking down, he saw the smashed remains of the display case. Among the shards lay the decanter and its lid.

  Alive again…

  Back in the library.

  Whipping his head in the direction of the screaming and seeing a librarian hurrying in his direction, Dan raced across the room and bolted down the stairwell.

  Two flights down, he stumbled and slammed into a cinderblock wall.

  It hurt. Big time.

  What hurt even worse was the terrible realization that he’d lost everything. Dr. Lynch had killed him, and now he was back in the old world, right where he’d left off.

  Hearing footsteps pounding down the stairwell after him, Dan hurried downstairs.

  Gone were his incredible dexterity, his superhuman strength, and, as he discovered by the time he fled the library and charged out a path packed with students, his endurance.

  Gasping for air, he bolted off the path, angled toward the back of the library, and dove under a hedge of heavy bushes.

  Gone, too, was his barbaric disdain for pain. Just this simple action, diving to the ground hurt. His hands scraped across the ground. His knee banged into a rock. Stiff branches scratched his neck and back and arms as he scrambled into hiding.

  He lay there, curled on his side, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible and fighting to catch his breath.

  He’d lost everything!

  Not just his barbarian skills and physical abilities. He’d lost Holly and Nadia, Wulfgar, and an awesome life.

  All gone.

  But not really…

  He had gone.

  The world that he’d left was still there.

  Holly was still strapped to a sacrificial altar, probably screaming with grief and terror.

  Nadia was wherever she’d run, hating herself for abandoning Dan and Holly as she had apparently always known that she one day would.

  Wulfgar had been destroyed.

  Zeke was missing, blasted into another plane of existence.

  Talia and Kord were dead, along with tens of thousands of innocent spectators.

  And everyone else would be dead soon enough, all because he had failed. All because he had foolishly attacked Dr. Lynch with brute strength and a sword lacking the necessary enchantments.

  Dr. Lynch had conquered the Noobs and the Legion of the Light. Now she would open wide the gate to the Plane of Ever-Shade and flood the world that Dan had lost with eternal darkness.

  Dan’s heart ached.

  Holly and Nadia…

  He had failed them, and now he would never see them again.

  And what of their real-world counterparts?

  Every time he saw Holly from across the hall, his heart would burn. Those girls would have nothing to do with him. They didn’t want him. Never would. They didn’t even know him.

  And truth be told, despite how much he loved their otherworldly counterparts, he didn’t know anything about these girls.

  He didn’t know them, didn’t love them, didn’t even want them.

  He wanted his women.

  But they, along with everything else, were gone.

  And that’s when Dan learned that he’d lost something else.

  His barbarian’s ability to hide in foliage.

  “Come on out, kid,” a voice said, and six uniformed legs appeared, all wearing similar, highly polished, black shoes.

  A radio crackled.

  One of the people surrounding him spoke into the radio, saying, “We’ve apprehended the suspect.”

  Dan didn’t bother to fight campus security, even when they pulled his hands behind his back and snapped cuffs around his wrists.

  The questions started. Who was he? Why had he destroyed the display? Why had he run?

  Dan mumbled responses, vaguely aware of the gawking students crowding around.

  Campus security led him to a waiting car. “Watch your head,” one of the cops said, helping Dan into the back seat.

  Then the door closed, and Dan sat alone in the back seat of a police cruiser, while the officer paused beside the car, talking to the other cops. They laughed and stole glances at Dan through the car windows.

  My life is over, Dan thought.

  He was right back where he’d left off, only now things were even worse.

  He was sitting in the back of a police car, about to be charged with crimes. They would force him to pay for the display case, and they would probably send him to court and make him pay fines there, too. Worst of all, they would tell his parents. He would move home, deep in debt and even deeper in shame and regret.

  If only he could go back.

  But no.

  He’d me
ssed it all up.

  And it struck him how absurd his failure had been. Really, he’d had the same problem all along.

  Pretending.

  Old-world Dan had blown off school and pretended that everything would be okay. Pretended that he could play T&T instead of studying and still keep his scholarship. Pretended that the problem with Grady would just go away on its own. Pretended that he could somehow get a girlfriend without ever mustering the courage to actually speak to females.

  In the other world, he had misinterpreted the problems of old-world Dan as a problem of timidity. Feeling contempt for his former self, he had charged ahead, acting like Wulfgar. Swing first, scratch your head later. To hell with half-stepping and consequences. Thinking kills action!

  Bullshit.

  All bullshit.

  And the same bullshit that he’d been feeding himself all along. Just a different flavor.

  It was all pretending.

  In both worlds, he had been in denial, pretending that things weren’t what they were. Meanwhile, he couldn’t get good grades, a bully-free life, or a girlfriend without actually working for these things. Nor could he, as a second-level barbarian, ever defeat a powerful necromancer with only brute strength and decisive action.

  Sure, boldness was good. But if he could go back to his other life, he would do a lot more than just charge mindlessly into combat. He would think first, quickly and decisively, then jump in without hesitation. He would be what he should have been all along: a thinking barbarian.

  Now, here in this shit-show version of the old world, he would have to apply these lessons as best he could.

  Reality was staring him right in the face. It’s tough to ignore your circumstances when you’re sitting in the back of a police car with handcuffs on.

  Dan squeezed his eyes shut. I wish I could go back…

  When he opened them again, the front seat of the police car had disappeared.

  In its place wavered a circle of shimmering silver, which dilated rapidly into a hole in reality, a doorway into another dimension, a gray nothingness with only one variation: an ancient wizard in a colorful poncho and ridiculous cowboy hat, grinning like a madman.

  Zeke leaned forward, his head popping free of the gate, and glanced around the police car and out its windows.

  “Weird place,” Zeke said. “Never visited before.”

  Dan beamed. “How are you here?”

  “I’m a quantum mage. I specialize in traveling the planes of existence, remember? That bitch blew me into The Between so I saw your spirit fly here. I’m going to head back and try to settle her hash for good. Want to come with me?”

  “More than anything!” Dan said, but then, thinking, he hesitated. “But wouldn’t I be dead there?”

  Zeke shook his head. “I just happen to have a Wish spell that could fix that. What do you say? You still have some fight left in you, barbarian?”

  Dan hesitated for only a second, trying to live his promise to think before acting, but a second was all it took.

  Yes, he wanted to go back.

  Not because he hated this world, but because he loved that world.

  “Take me back!” he bellowed, climbing through the gate…

  58

  Bronan the Barbarian

  Trumpets blasted, and everything–the gate, as well as the realities to either side of it–stopped.

  Time had frozen again.

  “Congratulations, you crazy son-of-a-barbarian!” Wulfgar’s voice shouted. “You just leveled up!”

  “Wulfgar?” Dan said, looking around. There was no sign of the two-handed sword. Just the frozen realities and Wulfgar’s disembodied voice. “I thought you were dead!”

  “Likewise, compadre,” Wulfgar said. “Until this crazy-ass sorcerer came to get you. The good news is that you’re third level now.”

  Dan felt a jolt of excitement. Third level? That would mean an additional eighteen hit points… just what he needed right now.

  “Last time we talked experience points, you were sitting at 9005, basically 3000 points from third level,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “You get 500 points for that barbaric threesome with Holly and Nadia, 212 points for the goblins you slaughtered, 175 for your share of one big-ass hellhound, 234 for wasting the acolytes, not counting the ogres, which earned you another 460 points. Tack on another 500 points for the berserk rages, general decisiveness, and having the balls to attack that undead bitch, and you’re sitting at 11086 experience points.”

  “But I need 12000 to reach third level.”

  Wulfgar sighed. “Here we go again. What are you, complaining? You get another 1000 for having the balls to come back. I mean, you were sitting there safe and sound, with no worries about somebody trying to kill you, and you decided to throw yourself back into a fight for your life. Barbaric!”

  “There are worse things than death,” Dan said.

  “Truth,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “Reaching third level means you’ll have 54 hit points and better chances with everything from attacking to saving throws. Oh–and you can use magic potions now.”

  “What about you?” Dan asked. “Are you coming back, too?”

  There was a brief pause. Then Wulfgar’s voice said, “Don’t be a pussy! What, you need me to hold your hand? No, I’m not coming back. That stupid bitch snapped me in half and disenchanted me. The only time you’ll hear from me is moments like these, basically when you level up. Keep leveling up, and I can give your sorry ass some pointers down the road.”

  Dan laughed. “All right, man. I just want to—”

  “Spare me the sappy farewell, cream puff. I gotta go back to non-existence, and you have an evil, ugly-ass bitch to kill. Fare thee well, Bronan the Barbarian.”

  And time rushed back in.

  59

  Between Time and Space

  Behind Dan, the door of the cop car opened. People shouted in at him, confused and afraid. “Get the hell out of there, kid!”

  But Dan plunged ahead, through the gate, which snapped shut behind him, leaving him face-to-face with Zeke in a bizarre gray nothingness.

  Zuggy popped his head out of the front of Zeke’s poncho, grinned, and extended a furry fist in Dan’s direction.

  “Sorry to leave you hanging,” Dan said, realizing that he couldn’t give the monkey a fist bump. “Zeke, you think you could remove these handcuffs?”

  “No time,” Zeke said. He dropped a lasso of silver light over Dan’s shoulders, and they started flying through the gray nothing. “The shackles will disappear once we get back to the other reality.”

  Looking around at the endless gray void, Dan asked, “What is this place?”

  “Welcome to the Between,” Zeke said.

  “Between my old world and the other?”

  Zeke laughed. “That’s a piece of it. A very small piece. Imagine countless worlds, countless universes, arranged in a grid.”

  “All right.”

  “Now picture each universe–each plane of existence, if you will–as a square on a sheet of graph paper. The top of the page is goodness and pure light. The bottom of the page is evil and pure darkness.”

  “Okay,” Dan said, picturing it.

  “All the way to the left is complete order,” Zeke said. “To the extreme right, total chaos.

  “The upper third of the page, called the high planes, is dominated to varying degrees by good but split more or less evenly between order-dominant and chaos-dominant planes.”

  Dan had a hazy memory of Willis drawing up something like this for T&T. He remembered the sheet of graph paper and remembered his little friend being really into it, but their campaign didn’t end up spilling into other planes, so Dan hadn’t paid much attention.

  “The bottom third of the page, called the low planes, is dominated by evil but also vary between order and chaos.”

  Dan nodded. “So the middle third is neutral?”

  “Not exactly,” Zeke said, “but there is a degree of balance between good and
evil… and constant struggle. In the upper middle planes, good is slightly more powerful. In the lower middle, evil has the edge. Understand?”

  Dan nodded. “I think so.”

  “There is a similar struggle between order and chaos at the vertical center of the page, from top to bottom,” Zeke said.

  “Makes sense,” Dan said.

  Zeke gestured with his arm at the gray space around them. “This is the Between. On that hypothetical sheet of graph paper, we’re cruising along the lines between the squares. This is generally how I travel from plane to plane. There are ways to open gates directly from plane to plane, as Dr. Lynch has done, but it’s very risky.

  “Your two planes of existence are very close to the center in terms of both latitude and longitude. They both reside near the center of the graph, so there is a constant struggle between good and evil and order and chaos.”

  “But Dr. Lynch is trying to change that,” Dan said.

  “Exactly,” Zeke said. “She opened a gate to one of the lowest planes, the Plane of Ever-Shade, and is flooding our world with darkness. If she has her way, we’ll all die, the entire reality will fade like a dying star, and our square will reappear on the lower planes.”

  “We have to stop her,” Dan said. He cared about the world, the universe, and everything, but mostly, he wanted to save Holly and Nadia… and destroy Dr. Lynch. “How much farther?”

  “We’re almost there,” Zeke said. “Now shut your beer hole so I can cast the Wish spell and bring Dan the Barbarian back to life, all right? And try not to get yourself killed again, all right? I don’t have another Wish spell in my back pocket. Also, because I’m using a Wish, your two selves might meld.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, if you die again, I don’t know if you’ll reappear in your old existence.”

  Dan nodded grimly. “I’m all in. Let’s go.”

  “Relax,” Zeke said. “Time here is not tied to time there. Only the amount of time that you spent in the other world will have elapsed in ours. That’s it. Events that occur here in the Between occur outside of time.”