by Sam Ferguson
GREEE—GRRREEEEE! GREE-GRRREEEE!
“Oh for the love of all that is holy and good!” Simplin shouted. “What now?”
The red box popped back into existence and the door was flung open. Mist and lights shot out from the inside as Doctor What emerged.
“What’s the matter?” Simplin asked. “Couldn’t make it on the outside?”
“As promised, I have brought Liriel back, now that she is done with her travels.”
“She came back for me!” Lucas shouted.
Doctor What stepped to the side and held out his hand.
From the mists came an old, withered hand, trembling and shaking as it moved slowly to take hold of Doctor What’s outstretched hand. A moment later, an elderly woman exited the red box. Her hair was white, not gold, and those curves had dulled with the addition of a few extra pounds. Lines stretched across her face, but it was the same pair of green eyes that looked out to Lucas, and both of them knew it was Liriel.
“What have you done to her?” Simplin asked.
“Why, nothing!” Doctor What said in a huff. “She’s been traveling with me for over nine hundred years! Best companion I ever had. But, she never stopped talking about you, Lucas, and always wanted to come back to this moment, when she had finished her adventures.”
“So what now?” Simplin asked. “She has been traveling around with you, having fun for the last nine hundred years, and she expects Lucas to simply take her back? I hardly think that’s a wise decision.”
“Why not?” Doctor What fired back. “Who can stand in the way of true love that stretches across space and time?”
“Any person who puts off a relationship for that long, has no real love for—”
“Lucas, come to me,” Liriel said with her fragile arms outstretched.
Lucas ran to her, took her into his arms, and lifted her up as they spun around.
“Beautiful!” Doctor What exclaimed. “Now, I must be off. Have fun you two, and here’s a little something for the honey moon!” Doctor What slipped a giant ruby into Lucas’ pocket, and then disappeared back into his red box. The siren flashed and the noise echoed throughout the chamber.
“Jack, this is too much,” Simplin groused. The wizard grimaced when the two love birds began kissing each other, each professing their undying love for the other. “Too much.”
Simplin turned and threw his hands up into the air. “I’m going up, are you two coming?”
No response as the couple continued to kiss.
“Right,” Simplin muttered under his breath.
The wizard trudged up the long hallway and found a stump outside the cave to sit on. He crossed his right leg over his left knee and leaned forward on his arms. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his long-stemmed pipe.
“Jack, I really don’t like the smoking bits. It’s bad for my health, and it sets a terrible example for the readers.”
“Well, what else do I do to give the readers a sense of how wizardly you are?” Jack mumbled.
“Give me a book,” Simplin said. “Just let me conjure up a nice read, and I’ll pass the time reading, you know, like normal smart people who don’t desire to have their lungs turn to blackened, dried out husks that rot away inside their chests.”
“You sure are demanding, for a character that I dreamed up as a kid,” Jack huffed. “Fine, go on, read one of your books.”
Simplin reached up and pulled his tall, pointy hat off of his head and reached inside, his arm fishing around for a few moments before he came back out with a pair of books. “Dimwater’s Dragon, or Fur Trader?” Simplin said as he looked at the two books in his hand. “Tough choice, but, I think I will go with Dimwater’s Dragon.” He put the other book back into his hat and then put his hat back on his head and began reading.
After a few minutes of immersing himself in the story, he was entirely oblivious to the outside world, so much so that Glenda and the other mercenaries approached him without catching his attention.
“Ahem!”
Simplin looked up and offered a smile. “Ah, Glenda, nice of you to come and check up on us.”
“Why are you sitting down on the job, reading a book?”
Simplin shrugged. “It’s over. The goblins are all dead.”
“All of them?” Glenda asked.
Simplin nodded. “Yep. There were less than a dozen in the entire cave system. You guys probably could have handled them fairly easily, but it was good that I came along. Their king did have magic.”
“How many is a dozen?” one of the men asked.
“I think it’s twenty,” another said.
“No, that’s a score,” a third said. “A dozen is thirteen.”
“No, that’s a baker’s dozen,” the second said.
“Enough!” Glenda shouted. “A dozen is twelve, and either way he said there were fewer than that.”
“Fewer?” the first merc said with a scrunched up nose. “I thought this was supposed to be a whole tribe of goblins.”
Simplin shrugged and slipped his book back into his hat. “I guess Jack must have changed his mind about how extensive the fight scene was going to be,” he said.
“Who is Jack?” Glenda asked.
“Oh, never mind,” Simplin answered. “All that really matters is that we killed the goblins, so you can get your payment, and we even saved a lady from being killed and eaten by the goblins.”
“A lady?” Glenda said. “What is her name?”
“Liriel,” Simplin replied. “A lovely half-elf that seems to have captured poor Lucas’ heart, for better or worse.”
Before Simplin knew what was happening, Glenda was at his throat with a dagger. “Don’t move a muscle, or I will open your gullet, understand?”
Simplin stared back at her, wide-eyed.
“Men, you know what to do,” Glenda said.
The others slapped a fist to their chests and took up positions around the entrance.
“We’ll be ready for Liriel,” one of them shouted.
“I’m afraid your friend Lucas has very poor taste in friends,” Glenda said. “Now, be a good wizard, and pass out.”
There was a terrible sting just under Simplin’s chin as the knife was brought up. The wizard recoiled, and then looked to the blade and saw his own scarlet blood running down the edge.
He fell over backward off the stump.
CHAPTER 7
Simplin awoke to find the sky dark and the air cool. His right leg was tingly, asleep from having been kinked up when he passed out. “Glenda! That was not a nice thing to do,” he said as he rolled over to push himself up. The slice under his chin still ached. He touched around it with his fingers, gently pressing in to assess the damage, but found that the cut was not severe. Careful to wipe his hand on the back of his robes, he turned around and saw that Glenda and the mercenaries had disappeared.
“Well, that’s great.” Simplin brushed himself off and started for the cave entrance, but then stopped when he heard the muffled sounds of crying. He turned, cupping a hand to his ear. The sound seemed to be coming from just beyond a group of large oak trees. Simplin went to the trees and carefully peered around them. He found Lucas kneeling on the ground in front of a mound of freshly dug dirt. The wizard frowned and took a step closer. “Lucas?”
“They killed her,” Lucas sobbed, his shoulders bobbing up and down. “She didn’t do anything to them, and they didn’t even tell me why, they just…”
Simplin then remembered what Glenda had said, and realized that they were the ones Lucas was talking about. “What happened?” Simplin asked.
“They all had bows,” Lucas said. “If it had happened a few hours earlier, when she was still young, she could have escaped, but her body was too old. The arrows all hit her at the same time. She never saw it coming.”
“I’m sorry,” Simplin said.
“Why?” Lucas asked as he turned his red, tear-streaked face up to Simplin. A glob of snot bubbled out of the farm boy’s left nos
tril with each breath. “Why did this happen?” he shouted.
“Oof, I hate ugly criers,” Simplin muttered to himself. “So hard to comfort someone who looks like a swamp troll.”
“WHY?” Lucas ranted louder, slamming a fist onto the ground.
Simplin shot a glance upward, but kept his mouth closed.
“I swear, I will find them,” Lucas declared. “I will find them, and I will kill them all. They will pay for what they did! Those thugs took away the only real beauty in this world. They stomped upon a lily that was growing amongst the weeds because they were too jealous of her!”
“Actually, jealousy is when you covet what you already possess, the word you are looking for is envy,” Simplin said. “But I suppose an editor will find that error.”
“I will not rest, until you are avenged!” Lucas held up a hand and pulled a knife with his other hand.
Simplin, knowing that the young farm boy was about to slice his own hand to seal the oath, rushed in and grabbed the young man’s wrists. “Perhaps there is a better way to get revenge than by wounding yourself in such a way that will render your hand useless for the next several weeks,” he said. “Seriously, all wizards smoke and all seeking vengeance slice their hands; it’s a bit of a dumb trope, if you ask me. I mean, how will you hold a bow if your left hand has a slice all the way across the palm?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lucas said with a frown.
“And besides, you only knew her for a couple of paragraphs, err, I mean a short time. It can’t be all that serious.”
“No! There was a bond between us!” Lucas shouted as he pulled away and jumped up to his feet. “This was true love! None truer has ever been had in this world!”
“Well, that isn’t saying a whole lot,” Simplin grumbled. “Seeing as this world is only a few chapters old at this point.”
“Why do you mock me?” Lucas shouted. He pointed the knife at Simplin. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Again, envious would be the correct word, but whatever. No, I’m not jealous. I’m happy that you found love, but this is just a bit too much.”
“You don’t understand!” Lucas shouted as spittle flew out of his mouth. He sniffled the snot glob up and wiped his face on his sleeve. “We had something special!”
“Hold that thought,” Simplin said. “I’ll be right back.”
Lucas straightened and scowled at Simplin the Wise. “Where are you going?”
“I’m the wise wizard! I will think of a plan that will make everything better. Just… wait here! Don’t move, and for the sake of all that is wonderful and yummy, don’t slice your own hand, you moron!”
Lucas glanced to his knife and then slowly moved to put it away as Simplin the Wise stormed off toward the briar bush in search of privacy, all the while shaking a finger in the air and grumbling incoherently. “That’s it!” Simplin said as he looked upward. “I’m coming up there.”
There was a flash of light and stick-figure Simplin appeared back on the 3x5 card to the left of the keyboard. The wizard pointed his stick-wand at Jack’s hands and the yellow energy that encircled them roughly bound them together.
“Hey! That hurts!” Jack squealed.
“This is ridiculous!” Simplin cried. “I am trying to go on a serious quest here, and you keep jumping from one extreme to the other. I find a farm boy and you take him away. I find an epic farm boy, and you make him too skeptical at first, but now he is far too emotional! It’s getting out of hand. I am seven chapters in, and all I have done is find the farm boy hero and get lost in a spider forest. I want adventure!”
“Hey, you should be happy, there are tons of epic fantasy books that really don’t have any action at all for, like, the first hundred and fifty pages,” Jack replied.
“And they still sell better than yours because they are entrancing!” Simplin shouted.
“Wow.” Jack frowned and shook his head. “That was just rude. I told you from the beginning that you wouldn’t want to finish this story. I told you the world was ridiculous. I told you that you would end up hating it, too.”
“No! You fix it. Make it better. Give my hero his backbone again! I mean, one minute he single-handedly slaughters numerous bat-demon things, and the next he’s crying like some super effeminate romance novel character. Are you trying to wear me out? Is that it? I tell you it won’t work!”
“Come on, Simplin. I’m tired, and it’s late.”
“No! The deal is we finish this story, tonight!”
“Argh!” Jack snarled. “Fine, how about I send you to a town where there is a dwarf chemist who knows of a potion that will bring Liriel back from the dead, will that work for you?”
“Resurrection potions are a bit overplayed,” Simplin said as he rubbed his stick-figure chin. “Then again, it would help Lucas to refocus.” Simplin nodded and then held up a finger. “One condition, the dwarf has to promise to help us resurrect Liriel after my quest is over. No side-trip gallivanting around the countryside looking for potion ingredients. He joins up, we fight the baddy, and then we get the potion.”
“Too bad,” Jack said. “I was thinking of a great ingredient gathering chapter. Did you ever play Oblivion, or Skyrim? You could spend hours gathering ingredients – it did wonders for making you feel immersed in the world. If I could do a chapter like that, it would be great for world-building.”
“No – I said no gallivanting, and I mean NO GALLIVANTING!”
Jack nodded. “That reminds me, ever see that show, Galavant? It was absolutely fantastic, they need to bring it back.”
“Jack,” Simplin said. “No tricks with this dwarf, okay? He promises us the potion after we get him to the baddy so he can help us, give him some sort of revenge quest or something, a vendetta against Skidmark the Brown, so that way the readers will believe his eagerness to help us.”
“All right, I got it, jump back in. We’ll start at the Dancing Donkey.”
“The what?” Simplin asked.
“It’s a big inn, where lots of travelers go. You’ll like it.”
“Fine. Just, send us there so we can move on, and make sure that Lucas has come around to the idea already in some sort of off-screen epiphany. I can’t handle any more ugly crying. It’s gross, and very un-manly.”
“K.”
“Good. Glad we had this chat.” Simplin’s stick figure on the card went rigid and there was a blinding flash of light as time in the story sped forward.
Lucas and Simplin found themselves standing outside the tall city gates of Brie. The night was dark and stormy, rain pummeling them and soaking through their clothes, chilling them to the bone as lightning flashed overhead. Lucas approached the man-door off to the left of the gate and pounded on it eagerly. A small panel slid back to reveal a guard with a stern brow and a scar upon his left cheek. “What do you want?”
“We need to get to the Dancing Donkey,” Lucas shouted over the rain.
Simplin was quite content to let Lucas handle the gatekeeper. He was busy trying out new spells to keep the rain off of him – none of which were working. Each new attempt only increased his anger with every failure until soon he was stomping in the puddles and shaking his robes in defiance. “Enough with the rain already!”
Lucas and the gatekeeper looked skyward at the sound of a muffled laugh coming from the heavens. Lucas then shrugged at the guard, who ultimately decided to open the door. The pair of soaking, sopping, grumbling heroes trudged through the muddy streets of Brie until they came to a three story building on the left with a large wooden sign hanging out front that had the image of a donkey dressed in a suit, complete with top hat and cane, apparently dancing whilst surrounded by large, overflowing mugs of ale.
“I think this is it,” Simplin said.
“I don’t know,” Lucas commented. “There aren’t any words on the sign, and to be honest, the picture looks like a mule to me.”
“Donkey, mule, same thing,” Simplin gruffed.
“Actually, it’s not the same at all,” Lucas tried to point out the difference, but it was too late. Simplin was already pushing his way through the front door. Lucas rushed to catch up and the two were hit with awkward stares from a group of five men sitting at a card table in the middle of the room.
“What do you want?” one of the older men said. “This is a private club. Get out.”
“I was told to meet someone here at the Dancing Donkey,” Simplin replied.
“Oh… well, I can see the confusion. This is the Merry Mule, and it’s a card club for retirees only. By the looks of your hair and beard, you’re likely old enough to join, but the young whipper-snapper has to go.”
“We play Bingo on Thursdays,” another elderly gent put in with a happy, toothless grin.
“Told you it wasn’t a donkey,” Lucas said with a smirk.
“Be quiet,” Simplin retorted. “Where’s the Dancing Donkey?”
All five of the men pointed toward the door.
“Three blocks to the east,” the first man said. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Simplin shut his eyes and clenched his jaw. The vein on the left side of his forehead began to pulse and throb. “Let’s go.” He turned and led the way back out into the cold, blustery rain storm. The two of them nearly slipped several times as horse manure and mud mixed to create a rather treacherous path leading to the Dancing Donkey. When they finally arrived, the only thing that set the Dancing Donkey apart from the other buildings on the row was a small wooden sign that simply read “Dancing Donkey Inn.” No fancy illustrations, no perfectly placed placards on the wall. Just a single board of wood hanging over the door.
“This better be the right place,” Simplin complained. The two of them went inside to find a cloud of tobacco smoke clinging to the ceiling, and a crowd of patrons laughing boisterously as raucous music escaped from the well-worn instruments of a live band that was just as busy imbibing as they were engaged with their craft.
They approached the bar and tried to flag down the bar keep, but he only nodded at them and flashed a forced grin as if to say, “Be with you in a moment,” while filling mugs and setting them before thirsty customers who would in turn slap their silver coins on the bar.
