Gelbus didn’t have much to lose anymore, so what were a few a drinks with an old friend to him? A fun time, that’s what.
The lightning flashed again, and an instant later, he heard it strike the ground not too far away. He stopped.
“That was too close,” he muttered. “Maybe it’s a warning, an ill omen. Maybe you should turn around, Gelbus. Go home…or at least sleep the storm away in that little inn you saw back west.” Then he shook his head. “Oh, no, Gelbus. You are talking to yourself.”
He wished at that moment that the Gnomes of the library hadn’t taken his top hat away, the one with the flower. That damn thing had grown to be one of his closest companions, and now…it was gone.
The air was still for the moment, and Gelbus’s courage came back to him. That, and his mouth was dry; very dry indeed. Not to mention at that point in the Gnome’s life, he didn’t particularly have a home.
He walked on.
The thunder continued to rumble in the distance, the storm growing ever closer. Gelbus saw no one else on the road for the rest of his journey, and not long after the last stroke of lightning had sent his heart plummeting to the pit of his stomach, he reached the gates of Ashbourne.
He had never been here before—at least, he didn’t remember it, if he had. Much of the last month was quite a blur for Gelbus. There were a million small villages like Ashbourne all over Oriceran; a million places with a million pubs that Gelbus had drowned his sorrows in. So, yes, he might’ve been here before. Does it matter? No, because this time, I won’t be drowning my sorrows alone. I’ll be with Elargo; how nice that will be!
No one was manning the gates. Gelbus did the polite thing and knocked three times, waited, then knocked some more. Nobody came.
Fishy, he mused.
An odd choice of words.
Perhaps it was the fishy smell in the air from Ashbourne’s black lake; he might’ve once known this fact about the town, when he was at the height of his knowledge and keeping the secrets of the world safe and locked away, but the brew had since flooded away much of that knowledge.
Lightning struck again. This time he thought he heard something roaring in the distance, after the brightness left the sky.
Frightened, Gelbus jumped straight into the gate, knocking his shoulder against the iron. It creaked rustily and opened.
“Well, I suppose I should enter,” he considered quietly, and then raised his voice. “Since someone isn’t doing their job!”
What was that pub’s name? Gelbus tried to remember as he entered the town. The Dancing Daemon? The Diligent Direwolf? Something silly.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled the letter out. The dark sky seemed to open up, and exposed one of the two moons of Oriceran, allowing Gelbus to read his friend’s handwriting by its pale light.
“The Pickled Pepper!” he shouted. “Such a silly name.”
A drop of rain landed on his nose. He wrinkled it while he stuffed the letter back into his pocket. Then he looked up, noticing for the first time how abandoned the town of Ashbourne looked.
Must be the storm, he thought.
But as he looked around at the buildings on either side of the long, dirt road, he saw no torches in their windows. All of them were shuttered and dark.
I have a bad feeling about this. I should go back.
Gelbus was never one to linger if he had a bad feeling. That was one of the many things he’d picked up during in his long life. If you have a bad feeling about something, don’t push that intuition away. Life is too short for that, he could hear his mother cawing in the back of his mind.
He turned around to head back out of the gate. The man he had passed on his wagon suddenly seemed like the nicest thing in the entire world. Maybe I can catch up to him and offer him payment for shelter—
“Where do you think you’re going, friend?” a voice said from his right. The voice did not sound friendly or welcoming.
His heart skipped a beat.
Did the man from the tavern set me up when he gave me Elargo’s letter?
He looked out of the corner of his eye and saw a hooded figure slinking in the dark shadows of the gate. The figure’s eyes glowed a fiery orange in the darkness, like the last dying embers of a great fire.
“Oh, I-I-I must be in the w-wrong town,” Gelbus stammered.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the man purred.
That bad feeling was rampant in Gelbus’s head. He thought about running, and then remembered how small his legs were. He wouldn’t get three steps before this man was on him. Best not to do that, he decided. Best not to upset or offend this man.
But those eyes…
In all of his studies, all the countless hours spent in the Light Elves’ kingdom, he had never heard of such a thing—a man’s eyes glowing like fire.
He’d heard of red eyes, yes; those were eyes one wanted to stay away from. Those were the eyes belonging to the Arachnids of the Dark Forest—a place one also wanted to stay away from, though Gelbus would’ve rather been there at this moment. At least he’d studied the Dark Forest and knew what to expect.
Gelbus stood a little straighter and put on his most polite face, which, given his Gnome-like features—the long nose, ridged brow, and beady eyes—wasn’t too polite at all.
“Forgive me, sir,” he said, “I must be going now.”
The stranger chuckled and stepped out of the shadows. As Gelbus saw the man’s face for the first time, his fear gripped him, rooting him to the spot.
This man did not look like a man at all. His face reminded Gelbus of melted candle wax, the skin burned and folded over; He wondered if the man had been in a horrible accident.
Then the man smiled. His teeth were mostly gone, but the few that were left crowded each other and seemed to be sharpened to fine points—the type of teeth normally seen on monsters and beasts, not men.
“I don’t believe you’re going anywhere, my friend. You’ve stumbled into our territory. When you’re under our skies, you belong to us.”
“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding,” Gelbus began, twiddling his thumbs. “I’ve only come to Ashbourne to meet a friend. His name is Elargo; do you know him?”
The man didn’t answer. His face went blank, as if his brain was shorting out. Gelbus was finding it increasingly harder to look this man in the eyes.
Suddenly, the man shook uncontrollably. It seemed he did so out of excitement. “Elargo…” he mused. “Oh yes, I know him. He was quite tasty.”
“Tasty?” Gelbus echoed, breathless.
The man nodded. A forked tongue escaped his mouth and swiped his charred lips, making a sound like pieces of deadwood rubbing together.
“Yes, tasty. I wonder if you’ll be the same; though I’ve never had Gnome before.”
That was it. That was the last straw. Gelbus turned and ran through the gate. He got, much to his surprise, five short steps away, before the stranger’s rough hands grappled him around the shoulder and threw him to the ground.
The sky broke open, and the rain came down, stinging his eyes and flesh.
“No, no, my friend, you cannot run. Not anymore.”
The stranger fell on top of Gelbus.
Gelbus moaned as the wind was knocked out of him.
“Ooh, let’s see how tasty you are. Let’s see—”
“Hunter!” another voice bellowed, cutting him off.
Gelbus couldn’t see who it belonged to, but he heard heavy footsteps over the sound of the rain and the distant rumble of the thunder.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the voice prodded.
“I…uh…was…”
“You were breaking the rules, that’s what,” the other man supplied. “The locals aren’t meant for you.”
“But—”
“No buts about it. We follow the rules. Do you want to give up your eternity?”
The man-thing known as ‘Hunter’ got off of Gelbus. The Gnome sucked in a breath; sweet relief. Then the
same rough hands yanked Gelbus up off the ground.
Gelbus saw the other man; the man who’d saved his life…for now. He had a serious face—none of the playfulness that was present on Hunter’s—and there was a sigil burned into his forehead. It looked to Gelbus like a dragon. Where have I seen that sigil before?
He couldn’t remember.
“Lock him up with the others,” the man ordered.
Disappointed, Hunter murmured, “Okay. No fun. No fun at all.”
“Please!” Gelbus shouted. “Please! This is all a big mistake!” But the other man ignored him and looked past the open gate, to where the black lake shimmered in the distance.
“Not much longer now,” the man estimated. “Not much longer at all.”
Gelbus was dragged through the streets. He bucked and kicked without much success. A Gnome’s physical prowess was not much compared to a man’s—a crazy man, at that.
“Where are you taking me? I demand you tell me!”
“Aw, don’t get your britches in a bunch, Gnome. I’m just following orders. Lucky Chrom came and saved yeh. I’m quite hungry. Like I said, never had Gnome before. Bet your reaaaal tasty.”
Fear changed to bewilderment. Humans eating Gnomes? Two moons, what has the world outside of the library come to?!
“Aw, it shan’t be long now,” the man known as Hunter continued. “The Dark One should be waking, as we speak. Then, my friend, all Hell is gonna break loose!” The man leaned back and cackled.
Gelbus tried his best to break free again, but was whacked across the back of the head. After that, much of the fight went out of him, and Hunter dragged him down the road as the storm pelted them and the thunder rolled.
Not far away, in the black depths of the lake, a great beast opened its eyes.
They were the same shade of fiery orange as the men who had taken the town of Ashbourne as their own.
Chapter Two
Maria Apple hit the ground hard, landing on her knees.
Sherlock, her Bloodhound, was much too close for comfort.
“Ouch! Fuck, that hurt,” she yelled. Then she opened her eyes and saw just how close she was to Sherlock’s backside. “Ew, gross!”
Geesh, the least you can do is buy me a drink first, Sherlock said, the words telepathically beamed right into Maria’s head.
“Didn’t you just use that joke?”
I dunno. Doesn’t matter. It’s just as funny the twentieth time as it was the first!
Maria pulled herself up and dusted the dirt away from her jeans.
Ignatius Apple, formerly Ignatius Mangood, laughed. He was helping Claire up from the ground. Tabby, Maria’s other best friend, was already up, looking around the vast world they’d just portaled into, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.
“Yes, the first time going through a portal is often rough on the traveler,” Ignatius informed the girls. He looked Claire up and down with concern on his face. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Besides, my broken coccyx, yeah, I guess, I am,” Claire answered.
Did she just say— Sherlock began, but Maria cut him off.
“Coccyx, Sherlock. It’s her tailbone. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Yes, we must all get our minds out of this proverbial gutter,” Ignatius declared. “For we are in dangerous territory.”
For the first time, Maria looked beyond her group, and the reality—or perhaps, unreality—of the situation hit her hard.
She was on another planet. She had just gone through a portal to another planet. A place where wizards and witches and so many other magical creatures and races existed, creatures and races she had always thought were make-believe, or just another part of her grandfather’s wild imagination.
But it wasn’t.
All of it was true.
If she’d had any doubt after slaying a humanoid spider, wielding a magical sword, or blowing up more than a few things with her magic, she didn’t any more, as she looked out among the vast expanse of strange land surrounding her and the rest of her tribe.
They had landed in a clearing of a dense forest. The trees towered over them, taller than any trees Maria had seen in Ohio; over these trees, looming and somewhat ominous in the night sky, were the peaks of mountains.
“Where are we?” Maria asked.
“We are home,” Ignatius said. He swept his hand out behind him toward the other end of the clearing.
“Home? I thought we were here to find a Gnome to tell us more about the world in between.”
Claire, awestruck, said, “Wow."
Sherlock, meanwhile, was having a blast sniffing around the edges of the clearing. Maria witnessed him lift his leg three times to mark his territory. She was surprised the dog had any urine left. He must have a reserve tank specifically meant for the marking of territories.
“We are, we are!” Ignatius assured her. “Though it will prove to be next to impossible. The Gnomes are secret keepers who'd die before they'd unlock the vault for us."
"What are our other options?" Maria asked. "We're desperate here."
"I know, I know, have no worries. We will figure it out. I just wanted you to get a look at Dominion. The place where you came from," Gramps said.
Maria’s heart thundered in her chest. She couldn’t say why, but she was scared. Home? How crazy this all is, she thought. I’ll never get used to any of it.
“Where is it?” she found herself asking.
“Through the trees,” Ignatius replied. “If the sun was out, you’d be able to see it. Well…what’s left of it.” He looked down at the ground, the smile quickly vanishing from his face.
Maria crossed over to him and put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” she soothed. “We will get them back.”
“I know we will,” Gramps nodded. “I know.”
“This sentimentality is great and all,” Tabby interrupted, “and I don’t mean to be rude, but can we maybe, possibly get out of this forest?”
Gramps smiled warmly. “You must’ve read my mind, Tabitha!”
Claire snickered. “ ‘Tabitha’.”
“Can it,” Tabby ordered.
“Come, come,” Gramps directed, “I shall be your tour guide today, but be wary; the closer we get to the Dark Forest, the closer we get to danger.”
Maria tapped the bottom of her sword’s hilt. “I’ve got this.”
Gramps smiled. “Now, Maria, don’t get cocky. You must remain humble.”
She nodded.
“And, Sherlock! Leave that poor Raffin alone!” Gramps boomed.
Sherlock jumped at the sound of his voice, and turned his head in their direction, his eyes catching a glint of moonlight from one of the two moons.
Two moons, Maria mused. How crazy.
All of it was crazy, though—she had at least accepted that.
“Come over here!” Gramps demanded.
His head down, eyes flickering up, Sherlock trotted over to the rest of them. Maria heard a squeaking coming from the spot Sherlock had just left, quickly followed by a rustling as the Raffin fled into the nearby brush.
“What is a Raffin?” Tabby asked. “Is it…dangerous?”
“Oh, heavens no!” Gramps said. “Well…erm, only if you don’t tickle their bellies or offer them food.”
I certainly wasn’t planning on tickling the little son of a bitch, Sherlock said. I was offering him to myself as food.
Maria glared at Sherlock, who flinched away from her death stare. “What did I say about eating things?”
You said don’t eat any Gnomes! A Raffin isn’t a Gnome!
“I said don’t pee on any Gnomes,” Maria corrected him.
So…I can eat them?
“NO!”
“Hush, now,” Gramps said. “There will be no eating of or peeing on any magical creatures.” He turned matter-of-factly and headed for the opposite side of the clearing. There was no way Gramps could've heard Sherlock's thoughts, only Maria could, but sometimes he was just good li
ke that.
Claire shook her head. “I never thought we’d have to be reminded of that rule.” She gave an exasperated glance in Sherlock’s direction.
“Yeah,” Tabby agreed, “seems like something like that would be pretty self-explanatory.”
Maria walked past them, smiling. “With Sherlock, you never know,” she teased.
Sherlock looked up at Claire and Tabby and did his best to smile, which was pretty unsettling, as it looked a lot like he was baring his fangs at them.
They all followed Ignatius into the dense forest beyond.
Maria clutched the music box, which was inside her satchel, to her chest, and thought she felt an odd buzzing beneath the canvas material.
A warning…
They saw the village about five minutes later, though Maria wasn’t sure if five minutes had passed or five years. Time seemed to work differently on Oriceran.
Gramps stopped short on the edge of the forest. Maria stopped behind him, and not long after, the rest of the group stopped as well.
Gramps brought a hand up to his chest and moaned.
“Gramps?” Maria asked.
He moaned again.
Maria walked next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said softly.
But she knew it was far from all right; the village of Dominion, the place Ignatius Mangood had once fought for, was in ruins.
The gates were blackened, weathered by war and age. Buildings stood half-destroyed, the ground scorched. Maria thought she could still smell the fire.
I thought the Arachnids took it over? Sherlock asked, startling Maria. He put his head up into the air and sniffed deeply a few times. I don’t smell any of those freaks nearby.
Maria told Gramps what Sherlock had said.
Gramps nodded. “Typical of them.” He shook his head. “They take over a place, destroy it, and leave it to the weeds when it has served its purpose.”
Maria wasn’t surprised to see that Gramps had tears in his eyes.
Claire came up on Maria’s right. “You all right?” she asked Maria.
Midwest Magic Chronicles Boxed Set Page 22
