by Dante King
“Wonders like what?” I asked.
Nigel began patting his pockets feverishly, while Damien carried on getting slowly redder and redder with suppressed mirth.
Finally, Nigel extricated a small, wrapped package from the depths of his jacket and held it up for me to look at.
It was a burger. A bog-standard dirty cheeseburger from everyone’s favorite global fast-food corporation.
I looked at it. Looked at Nigel. Looked back at the ninety-nine percent heart attack he held in his hands.
“Uhh, what’re you showing me here, Nigel?” I asked. I was at a total loss.
Behind Nigel, Damien was crying with silent laughter.
“You never told me that your world had developed such robust travelers’ fare!” Nigel said. “I have had this burger in my pocket for days now and it has shown absolutely no sign of change. No mold, no alteration in scent or appearance. It has cheese on it, Justin! And that cheese has not fouled or gone bad, despite being exposed to the air for days. It’s a culinary marvel.”
I let out a little confused noise. I still wasn’t sure if Nigel was making some kind of joke, or if he was deadly serious. I didn’t know for sure of course, but I would have put a crisp twenty on the fact that nobody had ever referred to one of Ronald’s finest as a ‘culinary marvel’.
“What is p-p-particularly extraordinary about this foodstuff,” Nigel continued enthusiastically, “is that it contains almost no nutritional benefit and yet droves of Earthlings consumed it by the ton! What’s more, they know that this kind of traveling ration is bad for them yet continue to chow down on it with gusto! It’s incredible. Damien took me to one of the burger dispensaries and on trying my first one of these, I thought that he was trying to poison me.”
“I’d never poison you, buddy!” Damien managed to choke through his mirth, slapping the halfling Wind Mage on the back.
“Okay, n-n-not poison me, then,” Nigel admitted, “I thought though, that maybe you’d pulled a prank on me, like you did a month ago when I was hungover and you got a shart slug out of the garden, wrapped it in a lettuce leaf, and told me that it was sushi.”
Rick snorted.
Damien leaned back and said reminiscently, “Oh yeah, that was a good one.”
“Anyway,” Nigel said, returning excitedly to his point, “I ate that f-first one, and it tasted like a mixture of cardboard and poo, but then, I found myself gravitating to the idea of getting another one. It’s quite marvelous as a traveling food, don’t you see? Long-lasting, impervious to degradation, and it compels you to eat more of it, even when your brain is telling you that you’d get more out of eating the box it came in! Genius!”
“Any other highlights?” I asked, smiling at hearing this alien’s interpretation of certain facets of Earth culture.
“Well, the metal boxes that everyone zooms around in really took me back at first,” Nigel said. “I didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
“Yeah, Nigel would have been dead in about the first fifteen seconds after leaving the portal if I hadn’t been there,” Damien said matter-of-factly. “Or the Feds or C.I.A. would have scooped him up.”
Nigel flushed. “There was a lot going on,” he said defensively. “How was I meant to know that the braking capabilities of an automobile were so poor when compared to a broomstick, or even a magic carpet.”
“There’s some poor bastard of a taxi driver in Spaulding Square who is going to go to the grave swearing that he saw some bespectacled kid fly over his cab a few seconds before he was due to run him over,” Damien said. “You should have seen him on day one, Justin. Like something out of Encino Man.”
I laughed. I could definitely imagine it. The phrase, “curiosity killed the cat” had been coined for men like Nigel Windmaker.
“Yes,” Nigel said, his eyes staring far off to a different world, “there certainly was a lot to see. A lot that was familiar and yet a lot that was so different and puzzling. Like the intriguing way folk say ‘no offense’ right before they say something offensive to you—this happens so often! Or how people will organize to meet up with their fellows in bars and parks, and then sit in a circle with their eyes on their tiny screens and not talk to one another. Or how—”
“Did Damien take you to Figueroa Street?” I cut in, afraid that we were about to get sucked down a rabbit hole of Nigel’s pet peeves of American culture.
“Yes,” the halfling said, his eyes turning misty at the recollection. “It reminded me a lot of Powder Lane in a way.”
“I can see that,” I said. “But with less magic.”
“Less obvious magic,” Nigel corrected me vaguely.
I sat up a little at this declaration. Well, my head jerked up an inch from the headrest and then settled back once more.
“What do you mean by less obvious magic?” I asked.
“You guys told me that there was no magic on Earth,” Nigel said. “But I saw that you were just being lazy in your speech. There’s magic there, but deep down. More underground, you know.”
Before I could ascertain his meaning, a crashing din of the magnitude that might have accompanied a pair of armored knights wrestling down a staircase resounded through the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Reginald Chaosbane said with his usual roguish suavity, “may I ask you to grab your coats and jackets and beverages of choice and join me out on the lawn. Once we are gathered there, my dear cousin Mort will kick off the Yuletide festivities by carving the Yuletide Log!”
There was a scrabbling for warm coats and jackets. The afternoon was waning. The light of dusk started to fall like a spell over the sparkling, snow-covered back lawns of the ranch. Snowflakes fell with picturesque frequency from the sky. The woolen clouds had reclaimed the heavens, but off to the west, there was just enough room for the sun to peep out and stain the underside of the fluffy canopy with pink and orange light.
Very agreeable. The perfect sunset for someone who had spent the majority of their day dashing about a castle and fighting monstrous, demonic beasts of various degrees of difficulty and spite.
I followed Aunt Ruth, Leah, Reginald, and Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock outside. Behind us came Igor, Mort, Janet, Rick, Nigel, Cecilia, Alura, Enwyn, Damien, Mallory, Idman, and Barry. I watched everyone troop outside. Seventeen of us. Seventeen of the most motley assortment of misfits that there might ever have been.
Milling around us were also a host of children and other family members that we, or at least I, had not yet been introduced to.
“Hey, where the hell is Bradley?” I asked Rick, suddenly noticing that one of the crew was absent.
“You didn’t hear?” Rick asked.
“Hear? Hear what? How am I going to hear anything, I’ve been in the woods for the past few days, drunk off my ass or naked,” I said. “Today, I’ve been busy enough just trying to keep from getting killed or worse. Hear what?”
Rick gave me that tombstone grin again.
“Bradley won that fucking competition,” Damien said, slapping me on the shoulder as he came to stand next to me. “He was going to come and meet us, but he’s had to do all these interviews for periodicals like, Big Buns Weekly, Flambéeboy, and Avalonian Housewife.”
“No shit,” I said, smiling and clapping my hands with delight. “Well, that’s awesome! How are the Flamewalkers taking it?”
Nigel frowned. “He’s managed to keep it from them for now. His letter didn’t go into detail, but apparently his father has been rather irked because a neighbor’s flying bulls pooped all over his lawn and destroyed some of his antique garden furniture…”
I turned to look out across the grounds at the distant, white, architectural confection that was Flamewalker Manor.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling at that particularly fresh and steamy memory, “judging by the size of those chocolate hotdogs, I’m not surprised.”
Reginald raised his hands for silence, and the hubbub of voices died.
“As many of you know,” he
said, “and, also, some of you do not, the carving of the Yuletide Log is an ancient tradition that has long been observed in the Chaosbane clan. My dear cousin Mort here, renowned bounty hunter and owner of perhaps the vilest set of sideburns in all of Avalonia, was champion of the Eggnog Gnome Hunt. As ancient right decrees, the carving of the Yuletide Log falls to him!”
There was a round of polite applause. One of the Chaosbane toddlers said, “Who the fuck is cousin Mort?” and Mort raised a shy hand in thanks.
“Bring forth the Log!” barked Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock.
The doors through which we had just walked opened once more. A huge, long platter came floating outside. There was nobody bearing the tray, but it floated along on a cushion of Chaos magic that appeared to be controlled by that saucy minx, Aunt Ruth.
From afar, I could not make out much of the contents of the tray. It just looked like a long loaf of meat, like an enormous kebab shop shawarma. As it drew nearer, I noticed that it was steaming in the cold late afternoon. It was when it drew level with where I was standing in the crowd that the smell of the thing hit me.
It smelled goddamn terrible. It smelled like…
“Is it just me,” I said in an undertone to Janet, “or does the Yuletide Log smell like shit? Like an honest to goodness turd?”
Janet, whose nostrils were dilating but otherwise seemed unaffected by the stench emanating from the Yuletide Log, glanced at me.
“Of course, it smells like crap,” she said, shooting me a funny look.
“And after Mort cuts it, are we supposed to all eat a slice or something?” I asked, horror stricken at putting something that pungent smelling near my face. I was already having visions of having the sort of reaction that dudes had when they tried to eat canned fish back on Earth.
Janet’s funny look morphed into one of disgusted confusion before settling into one of abject mirth.
“Oh my goodness!” she said, almost choking with laughter. “Oh my goodness, that is hilarious!”
I glanced at Cecilia, who was also trying to stop her ribs from breaking in her fit of laughter.
“What?” I asked.
“The reason that it smells like crap,” Janet managed, wiping tears from her eyes, “is because it is crap!”
“What?” I said again.
“Why the hell do you think they call it the Yuletide Log, friend?” Rick guffawed.
“You’re telling me that the cutting of the Yuletide Log is, principally, the slicing of a huge butt muffin?” I said.
Nigel started cracking up.
“That would be a fairly accurate description, yes,” said Alura.
“That,” I said, with perfect truth, “is probably the most fucked up holiday tradition that I have ever heard. And I come from a country that holds a vacation to mark a bloody strike that led to dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damage on the first Monday in September every year.”
“Mortimer Chaosbane,” Reginald called, “are you ready to do your festive duty on this festive dookie?”
Mort stepped from the crowd and said solemnly. “I am.”
Reginald turned to Aunt Ruth.
“Auntie, release the Yuletide Log, if you please!”
Aunt Ruth made a motion with her hand and the Yuletide Log shot, blazing silvery-white Chaos Magic behind it, into the dusky sky.
The giant shit rocket, which must have been at least twelve feet in length, arced out over the pristine white lawn.
Mort pulled one of the many daggers from out of the folds of his Franciscan-style robes. It was one of those crescent-bladed things, deadly sharp and ornate. He strode out across the lawn, executed a balletic side flip, and threw the dagger into the log as hard as he could. It hit the Yuletide Log bang in the middle and severed it cleanly in two.
A great cheer rose up from the clan, and I followed suit. I was running on autopilot, I think, still trying to grasp the notion of a holiday being opened by someone cutting a massive load of shit in half. There was a metaphor and a life lesson in there somewhere, I was sure of it, but it had been a long day and I was ready to turn my brain off and enjoy myself.
“Well done, Mortimer m’boy!” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock bellowed happily.
Mort rejoined the rest of the party, walking lightly through the snow, and accepting a brimming beaker of something that smoked in the cold air from Igor.
“Now,” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock cried out over the rising babble of his kith and kin, “let’s all of us head back inside where libations and victuals shall be brought forth and we can settle in for a good Chaosbane party!”
The company started to head back inside, and I followed along slowly behind. It had been an interesting few days, but it looked like things were not quite over yet.
All of us gathered around the vast Chaosbane family dining table and feasted. There were heaped tureens, piled plates, overflowing bowls, and generous platters of every kind of food I could imagine—as well as some that I couldn’t. The conversation flowed like wine and the wine flowed like water. It was one of the most pleasant dining experiences I had ever had the pleasure of being involved in, and was only slightly interrupted when Igor somehow managed to set his end of the table on fire.
Halfway through the feast, Madame Xel and Odette Scaleblade appeared, bringing with them none other than Gertrude the Inscriber. It only took Gertrude a few minutes at the end of the table that had not recently been set ablaze to bolster my spellbook with four new spell slots. I felt like she made a concerted effort to get the business taken care of so she could wander casually down the table and take up conversation with the patriarch, Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock.
“You know,” Damien said, gesturing expansively and slopping red wine into his lap, “I was expecting a Chaosbane Christmas to be a little more… I don’t know, nuts than this.”
I exchanged glances with Leah and Mallory. Mallory gave me one of her austerely patient looks and rolled her eyes, while Leah carried on gnawing at a succulent, meaty fowl leg and paid absolutely no attention.
“Well, boys,” I said, “I think it would be fair to say that you missed out on a lot over the past few days.”
“Like what?” Nigel asked.
I puffed out my cheeks. “Nigel,” I said, “where the hell should I start?”
“How about the beginning?” the halfling said.
I thought back to the sleigh ride through the wormhole. “How about the beginning,” I muttered.
An enthusiastic ding-ding-ding-ding-ding of a teaspoon on the side of a thin glass—followed by the predictable shatter of said glass—floated up from the head of the table.
Reginald Chaosbane cleared his throat and drew the attention of all onto himself. The mustachioed man slouched nonchalantly in his chair. It never ceased to amaze me how he managed to somehow strut while sitting down, but there he was doing it. When everyone’s attention was fixed on him, the Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy stood, brushing broken glass off his waistcoat.
“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Just a few quick words before we all become too addled with all this exquisite food and drink, if you’ll indulge me. As you all doubtless know, thanks to the fantastically insidious properties of gossip, there was quite the kerfuffle up at the Castle of Ascendance today.”
There was some sniggering and a few waggish jeers from some of the assembly.
“It was something that had to be done,” Reginald said, his clever eye flicking briefly onto me, “but it has ruffled some feathers amongst the higher-ups, amongst our betters. They were feathers that were inevitably going to be ruffled somewhere down the foggy road of the future, and that future is now upon us.”
“What are you on about, lad?” Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock said peevishly.
“I mean, that Queen Hagatha and her Arcane Council, who were never great fans of mine, will soon be positively shitting kittens when they find out what actually transpired at the Castle of Ascendance and why,” Reginald said. “The Counci
l will no longer play their games in the shadows and will no longer allow me to do things at the Academy as I have been doing them.”
This sounded like something serious, but looking at Reginald’s excited and confident face, it was clearly something he had been orchestrating for a while. My going to the castle and causing a bit of a stir didn’t seem to be the real reason behind why the Queen and the Council were suddenly no longer turning a blind eye. I wondered if it had anything to do with my parents’ plans for the future of universal magic.
Reginald Chaosbane grinned like some sort of roguish pirate tiger and raised his glass.
“So,” he said, “after we have celebrated another splendiferous Yuletide here at the Chaosbane family seat, we will not be heading back to school straightaway, but onward unto unknown shores!”
Everyone raised their glasses. There were smiles all round. Butterflies of excitement awoke from their slumber in my stomach and began stretching their wings. I looked around at my friends. The unknown was to adults as the dark was to kids: something scary to reach into. People usually liked to see what it was that they were grasping for, but the people at this table didn’t give a damn. To them, it was all an adventure, and the future was there to be stretched out for and grasped with both hands.
I raised my glass higher and intoned with the rest of my friends, “To unknown shores!”
End of Book 6
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