by Sam Ferguson
Skidmark waved his hand and Simplin’s lightning vanished. “Oooo, look, I can be funny too. See, I just took away your powers, and that’s soooo funny!”
Simplin frowned and focused his mind, but nothing happened. “My magic, how could you take it from me?”
“I could go into a long, drawn out monologue about my plans, how I prepared to meet you, and my strategy for defeating you, but I am not going to do that.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Lucas said. “I hate monologues.”
“Right?!” Skidmark said. “So cliché, and so dumb. I mean honestly, why would a super villain waste his moment of triumph?”
“You can’t beat us both,” Simplin snarled.
Skidmark shrugged and then clasped his hands behind his back. “As you can see, the moon is now out, the sky is dark, and it is time for the end of the world.”
“No, the sun was up just a moment ago,” Simplin said as he turned back to the door to gesture to the outside. He stood in disbelief as the sun raced down the last several hours’ worth of its arc in just two seconds, the sky blackened, and then up came the full moon.
“Yes, well, it seems our little world has reached its end,” Skidmark said.
“Not if I can help it!” Lucas shouted. He pulled out his sword and charged.
Skidmark’s eyes shot open wide. “You weren’t supposed to find that. How did you find it? I hid it!” Skidmark turned around and ran for the pedestal. He quickly began chanting the words on the first page of the Really Evil Book of Super Bad Spells.
“Darkest night, brightest light, come together in your final flight!” he chanted. “Spill the blood, raise the flood, come forth and open destruction’s bud!”
Lucas shouted with all his might. “For LIRIEL!” he screamed as he leapt up, sword held high, and flew through the air.
Everything moved in slow motion: the hero flying in a triumphant arc, Skidmark trying to shield himself with a spell, but not raising the ward in time. The sword came down. Simplin’s smile grew. Victory was now!
The sword connected with Skidmark’s arm, and then promptly shattered. The shards of the sword fell harmlessly to the ground, leaving Skidmark laughing as a shockwave went out through the chamber that knocked Lucas to the ground and sent him sliding and slipping across the floor.
“Oh man, that was fun!” Skidmark said. “You both fell for it!”
“Fell for what?” Simplin asked.
“The sword in the stump! HA! I knew you would, Simplin you old fool. This sword isn’t from a stone, it’s from wood.”
“No,” Simplin gasped. “It’s from stone. Petrified wood is technically—”
“Meh, technically, shmechnically,” Skidmark said as he pulled out a dagger from his cloak. “The thing is, Simplin, in this story, not everything plays by the rules. The real sword in the stone was sent away a long time ago. As soon as I heard about it being my only vulnerability, I banished it from our world and sent it to some island on a distant planet.”
“I told you this sword wouldn’t work!” Lucas shouted.
“Oh, his whining gets on my nerves!” Skidmark said. He stretched out a hand and Lucas’ body was lifted from the floor and brought to Skidmark. A second later, Skidmark plunged his dagger deep into Lucas’ neck. “Too bad,” Skidmark said. “You never stood a chance against me.”
“LUCAS! NOOOOO!” Simplin shouted as he fell to his knees.
“What now, great, wise wizard?” Skidmark asked as he tossed the body to the ground. “Arethel, Mulligan, Lucas, even Liriel, they all died because of you. You were the fool who gave them hope, but there is no hope. There is only death!” Skidmark stopped and chuckled to himself. “Well, that and taxes, but mostly death.”
There has to be a way to stop him!
Skidmark bent down and took the potion of resurrection from Lucas’ pocket. “This might be kind of fun,” he said.
Simplin growled and sprinted toward Skidmark.
“No,” Skidmark said as he held up a hand. Simplin ran into an invisible barrier that knocked him onto his rump. Then, an invisible force picked him up and held him in the air. “I want you to watch this, Simplin.” Skidmark bent down and poured the potion into Lucas’ mouth. There was a gust of wind and then Lucas coughed and sputtered as he came back to life.
“What happened?” Lucas asked. The farm boy locked eyes with Skidmark and seized the sorcerer by the neck. “I’ll kill you!”
Skidmark vanished, and then reappeared several feet away. “Teleportation is a fun spell. A bit disconcerting with how it disassembles every molecule in your body and then reorganizes them somewhere else, but you get used to it.”
Lucas stumbled to his feet, and pulled the knife out of his body. A lot of blood poured out, but the magic of the resurrection potion sealed the wound within seconds. “I will cut out your heart, and eat it!” Lucas shouted.
“Lucas, my dear boy, you simply aren’t that quick on the uptake are you? Don’t you see? I have already won. How do you think you are alive again?”
Lucas stopped and thought.
“No, Lucas, don’t, just go after him!” Simplin shouted. “You have to stop him!”
Lucas reached up and felt the scar on his body. “You killed me,” Lucas said. “I was dead, and then…” realization dawned on him and he searched his body for the potion. “No-no-no-no-NOOOO! You used up the potion! That was meant for her! NOOOOOO!” Lucas fell to his knees and started to rant and wail as he slammed his fist onto the floor.
“You see, Simplin, I didn’t just win. I really, really beat you guys bad. I mean, I killed the titular hero, and then I brought him back from the dead just so I could break his psyche. And now… well, I’m over it, so I’ll kill him again.” Skidmark stretched out a finger and winked at Simplin.
Lucas dropped like a rag doll, dead as a door nail.
“You’re a monster!”
“Oh, that’s not all,” Skidmark said. “I am about to finish the spell. The time is right, Simplin, so relax, enjoy the fireworks, it’s going to be a hot party!”
Simplin was forced to the doorway where he could see the world outside.
Skidmark began chanting the spell from the book once more.
“JACK!” Simplin shouted. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to end! Come on, buddy!”
“Oh, and don’t bother talking with the author,” Skidmark shouted. “I know all about that. And, it isn’t going to work this time.”
“JACK!” Simplin shouted again. “JAAAACK!”
“Sorry Simplin,” Jack’s voice thundered through the world.
“Sorry? You’re sorry!? Everyone is dead! How am I supposed to win?”
“I told you, you wouldn’t like how this story ended,” Jack said.
“What do you mean?” Simplin asked, fear gripping his heart. “You can’t mean what I think you mean, can you?”
“Simplin, I tried to warn you. I told you several times, practically begged you to give up.”
“Why are you doing this?” Simplin shrieked. “Is it the binding you to the keyboard spell? Is that it? Look, give me my magic back and I’ll let you go. We don’t have to finish the story. Jack—JACK!”
“I’m sorry Simplin, but this is how this one ends.”
“All finished,” Skidmark said from behind. “Now time to watch the pretty colors.”
Simplin watched in horror as a massive tide of flame rose up from the horizon. “This is how it ends?”
“Don’t worry, it will be quick,” Skidmark said. “The flames should only take about two or three more seconds to reach us.”
“JACK!”
The flames swooped so quickly that it sounded like a hurricane coming toward them as bits of the world were ripped up and obliterated instantly.
“JACK!”
“Sorry, Simplin,” Jack offered. “It’s been fun.”
“Jack! You son of a—”
Flames washed over the dark tower, and all was gone.
EPILOGUE<
br />
Seriously? You think there’s going to be an epilogue? The whole planet just blew up. What exactly would you like Jack to do? Shall he invent some new magic and bring all the heroes back? Time travel perhaps?
No.
Too bad.
They died.
They. All. Died.
Don’t ask for mercy.
I mean come on, did you really think they’d win?
That would be far too easy. A farm boy trouncing a world-renowned sorcerer—hogwash!
Seriously, how were they ever going to win with a near-sighted elf, a clumsy dwarf, and a crazy old wizard?
They weren’t. Period. Not a thing you can do to change my mind. So you can just shush.
By the way, I wrote this part first. So, joke’s on you.
Ha ha, bad guys win.
Evil triumphs.
Good lost.
So sad.
:P
Post-Epilogue
Jack sat back from his keyboard for the first time in thirty-six hours. He rubbed his wrists, turned his hands over and stretched his fingers. In a fit of anger and finality, he crumpled up the little 3x5 card with Simplin’s stick-figure drawing on it and tossed it into the waste basket. Then, he sent the entire manuscript into the recycle bin on his desktop. He was certain no one would want to read it anyway, and besides, he didn’t much like the idea of preserving the story of Simplin the Wise.
When that was done, he sighed once more and fell back into his chair. He was beyond tired. Still, it was nice to know that if he actually got off of his lazy butt, he could knock out a full manuscript in less than two days, as long as he only stopped for the bathroom once and had juiced up on Dr. Pepper beforehand, that is.
His stomach grumbled, reminding him that with his hands magically bound to the keyboard he had not been able to put anything into his mouth in the way of food.
“I want a nice breakfast burrito,” Jack said. “And then I am going to bed.”
That’s precisely what he did. After stumbling into the kitchen on legs that were far too wobbly to hold him upright without bouncing off the walls twice, he nuked his burrito in the microwave, washed it down with a glass of milk, and then barely made it to his bedroom before falling over like a felled pine.
He was out for most of the day, waking up around four in the afternoon. He went to the bathroom, happy he didn’t have to perform any special yoga-moves to make it work this time since his hands were free. He then scrounged around for his cell phone, which was stuck in the couch cushions, of course, and ordered a pizza. Pineapple and Canadian bacon, like always. This time a two liter of root beer though instead of Dr. Pepper. A double order of cinnamon breadsticks, and a half order of cheesy bread.
“Good thing I’m putting off that keto diet,” he told himself when he hung up.
He looked down the hall and stared at the open door to his office.
Thirty-six hours. That isn’t too long. If I actually divided that into six hour days, I’d be done with a new manuscript in six days. He stared at the door for a little while longer. In the back of his mind, he still heard the editor’s voice. The challenge to write something epic had already been given, and it was the only thing that was going to save Jack’s career.
At his age, having been out of the “real workforce” for so long would mean he would have to start over. No employer was going to look at his skills seriously. The idea of pushing carts with a bunch of high-school kids made him physically shudder.
“All right, you want something epic, I can do that!” he said as he jumped up.
He stormed into his office, brimming with confidence at having just outsmarted his oldest and craftiest character by creating a massive trap for him. If he could do that, then surely he could write a deep, meaningful literary work that would have such broad appeal everyone would flock to the stores to buy it. So what if he wasn’t the top author in the world. No one would ever beat her anyway. But, he could knock out a full manuscript in six days.
Six days.
A smile flashed across his face as he yanked his chair back from the desk. “I’m back,” he told the computer. He sat down and cracked his knuckles, then stretched his fingers over the keyboard and hit a few hot-keys to bring up a new document.
The cursor blinked in front of him.
Now for the title.
He sat and thought, but nothing came to him.
No worries, I’ll skip the title for now. I just need to get the story moving, the title will come.
Ten minutes passed by. Still nothing.
“Oh, the music, I need the music!” Jack said as he opened up Pandora. “Have to have the mood music.”
Ten more minutes went by.
“Fine, just a character. I mean, no one really expects a book to be fully created in thirty-six hours right? If I sketch the character and then create the outline, that will be enough for today. Then I can write tomorrow. Seven days for a book, still amazingly fast.” He nodded to himself, as if he had won some inner court battle with his final statement.
Problem was, all he could do was stare at the 3x5 card he had pulled out.
“Come on, think!” Jack said.
Finally, he realized what he was doing wrong. He needed his primer. A throw-away story that would get his brain functioning again. That was it! Just a little warm-up for the imagination!
He opened up a second new document and set his fingers to the keys. He closed his eyes and waited for the next silly prompt to come to his mind.
Trouble was, nothing came.
His eyes shot open wide and his mouth fell open in horror. “What have I done?” Jack cried. Suddenly, he realized that all the books he had ever written, every line of every story, had come because Simplin was his muse. All of his fanciful tales of adventure and intrigue, they depended on Simplin, and now the wizard was dead, and not just in a fictional sense, but a very real, final sort of way.
Jack reached into the wastebasket and pulled out the wadded up 3x5 card with the stick-figure wizard.
“I’m sorry, Simplin, come on back, just a joke, you know!” He chuckled nervously. “Didn’t mean it, just wanted to make sure you didn’t trap me anymore, all right? Buddy? Pal?”
The stick-figure stared back at him with empty dots for eyes. Jack could tell that the essence of Simplin was gone now, deleted from his life, and ripped from his soul.
“NO!” Jack shouted. He grabbed an empty 3x5 and re-drew Simplin, careful to embellish the wizard’s hat with stars and give the wizard shoes as well as a sparkling wand this time. “There, come on now old friend, come on back to me, I need your help.”
The stick-figure stared back at him lifelessly, quietly.
Simplin was gone, and with him, the magic of Jack’s dreams had been tossed away as well, never to return.
About the Author
Sam Ferguson is the proud author of more than twenty fantasy novels. He launched his writing career with The Dragon’s Champion series, cracking the Top 100 for epic fantasy books. He has also written The Netherworld Gate Trilogy, The Sorceress of Aspenwood Trilogy, and The Haymaker Adventures to name just a few. He has had several #1 best-sellers in the U.K. and Australia, as well as a couple of top 20 hits in the U.S.
Nearly all of his novels take place on Terramyr, a single world rife with varying races, religions, and conflicts that propel the world itself along through its timeline toward a final climax. So, while each novel or series can be savored on its own, the more a person reads, the more immersed they become with Terramyr, its gods, and the grand events that will ultimately prove the worth and decide the fate of its inhabitants. (Sam has also hidden a few Easter Eggs such as crossover characters and other fun tid-bits for the eager reader!)
In his free time, Sam Ferguson is a competitive powerlifter. While he spent his first career as a U.S. diplomat, living in Latvia, Hungary, and Armenia, he is now quite content to travel the far reaches of Terramyr instead, and hopes to bring many of you fun-loving adventure seek
ers along for the ride!
If you enjoyed this book, then join Sam Ferguson’s Facebook page, sign up for alerts on his Amazon page where we would encourage you to leave reviews on the books you have read, or you can follow Sam on his author blog: talesfromterramyr.com and on his weight lifting blog: www.steeldads.blogspot.com
www.dragonscalebooks.com
Other Books by Sam Ferguson
The Sorceress of Aspenwood Series
The Dragon’s Champion Series
The Wealth of Kings
The Netherworld Gate Series
The Dragons of Kendualdern series
The Fur Trader
The Haymaker Adventures
Flight of the Krilo
Winter’s Ghost (Novella)
The Moon Dragon
The Beast of Blue Mountain
The Dwarves of Roegudok Hall comic Episode 1
Epic Farm Boy
Other Books by Dragon Scale Publishing
The Lost City of Alfarin by Keaton James and Sam Ferguson
The Protector of Esparia by Lisa M. Wilson
Kingdom of Denall Series by Eric Buffington:
The Troven
Secrets at the Keep
The Changing
Tales of the NoWhere and NeverWhen by Jason Hauser
Wisp the Wayfinder
Puck the Pathwinder
Nobb the Nightbinder
Blood Bound by B. Griffin
Favored, by B. Griffin
The Bohemian Magician, by A.L. Sirois
Codex of Light, by E.P. Stein
Codex of Darkness, by E.P. Stein
The Dream Chest, by E.P. Stein
For more, check out
Dragonscale Publishing website:
