Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson

by George Alec Effinger

  Sure, the merchants must've lived in the back of their shops, except I didn't see any backs. Just these one-room huts made out of sticks. They could've learned some important and useful things about architecture from a Neolithic tribe in New Guinea or somewhere.

  So here's Maureen Birnbaum, Protector of the Weak, ankling into this dinky place. It looked like a strip mall of outlet stores during the reign of King Albert.

  Albert. King Albert. The one who burned the cakes. You remember. No, that wasn't Charlemagne. It was King Albert the Great. Or somebody. Hey, Bitsy, it's not even important, all right? Jeez!

  So guess what the name of this village was? No, not Brooklyn. Ha ha, too amusing for words, Bits. No, they called the place Mudville. As in "There is no joy in." I thought, "Like wow, I've traipsed into another literary allusion." I was all set for Casey at the Bat and baseball. Girlfriend, was I ever wrong.

  Imagine, if you will, Our Hero entering the first of the five shops of sticks. A tinkling bell announced my arrival—further oddness, on account of there was no actual door for the bell to tinkle on. I turned around and saw what was probably the shopkeeper's teenage son, a gawky kid with a face so broken out it looked like a Hayden Planetarium sky show in Technicolor. He was crouched beside the entrance with a little bell and a little hammer. Hey, what the hell, he was learning the trade and you got to start someplace, I guess.

  The guy behind the counter goes, "Welcome to Scrupulously Honest and Fair Fred's Armor Emporium. May I help you?"

  "Are you Scrupulously Honest and Fair Fred?"

  "No, he's sick today. I'm his brother, Aethelraed, but never fear, dear lady, I am also scrupulously honest and fair. Pretty much."

  "Uh huh," I go, "and don't call me 'dear lady.'"

  "May I show you our wares? We just got in a very nice tarnhelm, nearly mint condition. Its previous owner came to a sorry end guarding a hoard."

  "Bummer," I go. "So like it didn't do that owner a hell of a lot of good. Not a terrific recommendation for the tarnhelm. Still, let me take a look. How much are you asking for it?"

  The merchant smiled broadly. "Just three thousand pieces of gold. A wonderful deal. Shall I wrap it for you or will you wear it?"

  Well, Bitsy, I had a twenty-dollar bill stuffed in my right bra cup and a one-dollar bill stuffed in the left. Of course, for emergencies I had a charge card tucked in my G-string. I thought three thousand pieces of gold sounded rand of steep for a tarnhelm—it's magic, Bitsy, it turns you into whatever shape you want. I see 'em all the time—and I didn't know if this gonif could relate to Daddy's AmEx plastic. Sure, no matter where I go in the Known Universe, they speak English—isn't that neat?—but sometimes their medium of exchange is edible roots and not dollars.

  So like anyway, just as I was about to make a totally withering reply, what do I hear but—wait for it—my mother's voice behind me—not Pammy, Daddy's babe/wife, but like my actual mother, who I haven't heard from in months. Okay, so I haven't been around much myself, but I'd just assumed Mom had disappeared under a mountain of mah-jongg tiles in Miami Beach or someplace. And she goes, "So is that worthless piece-of-trash tarnhelm still under warranty, Miss Buy-The-First-Thing-You-See?"

  I turned around and just stood there, blinking like an idiot. I didn't know what to say to her. I go, "Mom? What are you doing here?"

  She shrugged. "Shopping. That's a crime now?"

  I opened my mouth and closed it again, you know, like dumbfounded. Finally I go, "You're in the market for chainmail today?"

  She gave me one of her little tsk noises. "What, I can't go into a store and browse around a little? Where does it say I can't just look at prices?"

  She picked up a Cloak of Invisibility that she couldn't have paid for if she had all the money Daddy made when he sold his silver to the Hunt brothers. "You don't find quality like this even on Seventh Avenue," she goes, and she tossed the cloak aside like it was some horrible thing I'd given her for her birthday.

  That's when I guessed it wasn't really Mom. My real Mom would've tossed the cloak aside, all right, but then she'd have given it a disdainful look and told the shopkeeper, "You'll accept ten dollars, I might take it off your hands." This near-Mom hadn't even tried to bargain.

  "Hey," I go, "who are you really?"

  She took a breath and heaved a sigh. It was very authentic. "My name, Maureen, is Glorian. I am called Glorian of the Knowledge by some, yet I have other names, many other names. I am a supernatural personage of ancient power and wisdom, here to guide you on your appointed quest."

  "I hate these goddamn quests," I go. And I do, too. Like why can't I accidentally whoosh myself to a nice beach with clean white sand and warm water and a few eager Brad Pitt types and a pitcher of strawberry daiquiris and, you know, no one expecting me to defend or rescue anybody at all for a couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to be in the cards for good old Maureen.

  "No one enjoys quests," Glorian goes. "It wouldn't be much of a trial if it was all fun and laughter."

  I turn on my Number Three Frown—you know: I Really Don't Have Time For This. And I'm like, "No way I can just whoosh on out of here and bag this whole quest thing, huh?"

  Glorian-Mom smiled. "I'm sorry."

  So I shrugged A warrior-woman's work is never done. "Then let's rally," I go.

  "Cool." like my Mom would never say "Cool." Like anybody called "Glorian of the Knowledge" would ever say "Cool," either. Yet, Bitsy, it happened: I was there.

  Now here's a secret Maureen Birnbaum makeup tip for you. After you put on the darker shade of eye shadow, you want to dab on just an eensy amount of the under-color right in the middle of the eyelid—where did that Caramel Smoke go?—okay, here. Watch. Now, if Prince Van was the disco type, I'd put some gold glitter there instead. But he's not, and I'm not, and you probably wouldn't even have—

  You do? Well, get rid of it.

  So then this Glorian goes, "There are a number of ground rules, of course, but I'll explain them as we go along. The first thing you must know is that you'll need certain supplies: armor, weapons, magical scrolls and texts, potions and wands, as well as sufficient food and water. By its nature, the quest places certain limitations on you. For instance, you may carry a total of only twenty objects."

  "I don't see why—"

  Glorian raised a hand "Twenty objects, regardless of their combined weight. Please believe me. The Powers That Be will not permit you to cany more. If you have twenty objects, and you find something more that you wish to take, you must drop one of the other items."

  "What about you?" I go. "Your arms, are broken, or are you too, you know, special to give me a hand? Or don't you mythical types schlep like normal people?"

  Glorian looked at me for a moment. "I will carry your treasures for you, but not your weapons and your other, shall we say, impedimenta."

  The word treasures I liked. "Great. I can deal with that, then. One thing I would like, honey, is could you please stop looking like my Mom? And like right now! It's driving me crazy."

  There was this little wibbly blur in the air where Glorian was standing, and then my Mom sort of turned into—this is going to sound omigod weird—Brad Pitt. Like that Glorian character had read my mind about the white sand beach and the daiquiris and everything. And now I was going to have to spend this entire exploit with a semi-real know-it-all who looked just like Brad Pitt.

  I truly felt that I was up to the challenge.

  "The second important rale is that you begin the quest with five hundred pieces of gold That's all you have. You must decide how to spend it here in the town. You may purchase anything you like, of course, but what you choose may seriously affect your chances of survival."

  "Ha," I go. "I've survived this long, haven't I? I think that snows that I can manage for myself, thank you very much."

  "Maureen, everyone alive today has survived this long. None of them seriously believes he'll live forever."

  Well, I wasn't about to tell him that I suspected that I wa
s immortal. Bitsy, it's true. I mean it. I think I am immortal. All right, stop laughing. You just don't know what I know.

  Blusher. What do you have in the way of blushers? These aren't my tones, after all, but you're seeing the real Maureen pioneering spirit at work here. I guess I can fake it with a layer of Vent du Désert and some Pêche aux Chandelles smushed around on top. That'll look tuf on my nipples, too, huh? Oh, grow up, Bitsy. Hey, you don't have one of those big Ping-Pong ball-shaped sable brushes? Never mind, I'll use my thumb. Resourceful, sweetie, fighting women are always resourceful.

  Anyway, I decided to peek around in all five of the shops before I shelled out a single gold piece. I started making up a shopping list. It was pretty tough, though. I. saw a million things I wanted—it was like, oh, say your mother gives you a thousand-dollar gift certificate to Tiffany's, and you go in there all excited and everything, and you find out that all you can afford are two silver cigarette cases or half a pair of the earrings you really want. See what I mean? Perspicuously bogus, huh?

  Fortunately, it turned out that the major expense for your average hero-trainee is the weapon. Most begin with a puny dagger and hope to trip over something better during the quest itself. I, of course, came pre-armed with my most fab broadsword, Old Betsy, so that meant I could spend more on other things.

  I took Glorian's advice and bought food and water and a lamp. Evidently it was dark where we were going. The lamp was this cheesy brass Aladdin-looking thing. It burned all right, and it gave off a bright enough light, but when I shook it, nothing sloshed inside. I checked it out, and you know I couldn't even find a place where you'd put oil into the damn thing. "Magic," Glorian goes. I figured what the hell.

  Finally, I've got about four hundred pieces of gold left. I was going to invest it all in a nice suit of steel plate armor, but Scrupulously Honest and Fair Aethelraed wanted two thousand for it, and I couldn't haggle him down any lower than seventeen five. I finally walked out of his crummy shop wearing a hard leather-outfit studded with metal points—I mean, wow, I would've been a big hit back in the French Quarter bars, but oh no! like I wasn't there anymore. And I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the leather gear, not when it came to protecting me from scrabbling claws and gnashing teeth.

  So this is how I began my adventure: with the swell groovy kicky bitchin' North Beach Leather ensemble—out nothing much in the way of special hand, foot, or head protection—and a small shield, also leather, but brown. Brown! Who wears brown leather?

  Oh. Well. On you it looks good, honey.

  I had the stupid genieless lamp and Old Betsy and five portions of food—Glorian chose them for me, on the basis of nutritional value, wholesome ingredients, and his own idea of a cost/benefit ratio. I asked him, "What kind of food is in those packages?" He goes, "It's food. Just food. The kind you get at a wayside inn. You know, you sit down at a big table and they bring you food. I also had a wooden canteen filled with drink—"

  "Just drink" he goes—and a modest selection of magical items.

  I hadn't wanted to spend money on magic. I figured me 'n' Old Betsy ought to be a match for any kind of monster we were likely to meet. Glorian disagreed. I could always count on him to disagree. What a feeb.

  We book it on out of town—the place was five huts big, so out of town was maybe a hundred yards down the road—and Glorian goes, "Close your eyes. Please don't ask, just do it."

  I closed my eyes like a good girl.

  "Fine," he goes. "Now you can open them."

  Well, I look and suddenly there's a cave beside the road. There hadn't been a cave there before. There hadn't even been rocks for a cave to be in. Now there was a bunch of rocks and this like danksome cave. "And this is?"

  Brad Pitt looked all blond and solemn. "Caverns measureless to man," he goes.

  "Down to a sunless sea," I go. Wow, one of those days I was awake in Mr. Salomon's class finally paid off in The Real World. Anyway, Glorian's eyebrows raised a little. Score one for the Muffster—and don't you ever call me that!

  "Please, Maureen," Glorian goes, "after you." So, with Old Betsy in one hand and the lamp in the other, I ducked into the cave and started down a long, winding staircase hewed from the living rock and like all covered with this funky wet green gunk.

  "What is this place?" I go.

  "It's a MUD, Maureen."

  "Hey, it's got water dripping down the walls and the place reeks, but at least there's no mud. I don't see any mud."

  "No, not mud. MUD. An acronym meaning Multi-User Dungeon. It's a term used by people involved in online computer role-playing games."

  Bitsy, I was steamed. "Games? Is this a game? I don't nave time, for games, Glorian! There are poor, suffering women and children out there who need my help!"

  Glorian-Brad frowned. "You'll soon find out that this is no game. This is very serious. Deadly serious."

  "Good," I go. "I don't want to waste valuable killing time on pretend enemies. I haven't even seen any monsters yet."

  "Soon."

  "No treasures, either, pal." Hardly had I gotten those words out of my mouth, when I followed a sharp turn in the passageway and entered a big, high-vaulted subterranean chamber. Overhead there were stalactites in every goddamn color you could think of—stalactites, Bitsy. No, you're wrong. I made up a mnemonic like fully years ago. Stalactite comes alphabetically before stalagmite in the dictionary, and you read from the top to the bottom. Stalactites hang. Trust me.

  Well, just forget it, then, honey. The important thing is the chamber wasn't entirely empty. There was this gooey thing in one corner, radiating a kind of sick pink glow. In a horrible way, it reminded me of those pink marshmallow Peeps you see around Easter time. You know, the ones you let get stale and then you microwave 'em. That's what we always did. I'm sorry,

  Bitsy, I guess you just missed out on whole lots when you were a kid.

  I looked more closely at the monster. "Yuck," I go. "What is that thing?"

  "It's a Pink Gooey Thing," Glorian goes. I know, Bitsy. He was just terribly helpful like that through the whole miserable adventure. I asked him what I should do, and he goes, "You could kill it."

  Aw, don't give me that, Bitsy. It looked lite it really needed killing. Besides, it would probably have shot me full of monster death rays in another tew seconds. This was like nothing that zoo lady ever brought out to show Johnny Carson.

  Johnny Carson. You know, the theoretically funny guy who comes on right before David Letterman. Huh? You're kidding. I can't keep up with all that stuff. It's a good thing that like I really don't care.

  Anyway, I started walking forward, wielding Old Betsy, but then I decided to try out one of my magical weapons. I figured it would be good to get familiar with them before I faced, you know, the evil, terrible Nightmare Critter that guarded the Treasure Beyond Counting. That was my ultimate goal, Glorian had told me. If I lived that long.

  I had several scrolls and one magic wand. I felt kind of, oh, stupid waving the wand I heard these little mouse-voices in my mind singing "Bibbity-Bob-bity-Boo," but I did it anyway. It was a Wand of Basic Blast, the poosliest magic weapon in the shop, but also the only one I could afford.

  The wand made pretty Tinkerbell dust in the air, and then there was a distinct zapping sound and I smelled something awful like the time Daddy's fan belt broke on I-95 but he didn't realize it for a few miles. Where the Pink Gooey Thing had been, there was now nothing much except a few pretty red stones.

  "Well done, Maureen!" Glorian goes. "You've slain the Pink Gooey Thing. You've gained five Experience Points, and you find two hundred and fifty gold pieces worth of rubies."

  "Tremendous," I go. "Let's hurry back up to the town and buy some more of this delicious drink, I'm so sure."

  "Ha ha. Your Wand of Basic Blast has nine charges left."

  "Say What?" I go. "Nine charges? You mean these things have to be reloaded? What kind of magic is that?"

  "I forgot to tell you."

  "And what
's an Experience Point when it's at home?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  I stopped in my tracks. I almost Basic Blasted his supernatural ass right into my next adventure. "Glorian," I go, in my Dangerous Voice, "did I hear you correctly?"

  "Um," he goes, doing a speedy reconsider. "When you collect enough Experience Points, you're promoted to the next level and you're rewarded with a greater Hit Point quotient and a larger Hex reserve. Hex Points are what you use to cast a spell without a wand."

  "I don't know any spells, Glorian."

  "You will," he goes. "Let's just move along now. There's probably another supernatural guide with another hero up on the surface, waiting for us to clear out of here."

  I shook my head. "You make this sound like Disneyworld."

  He nodded. "A lot of the same people worked on it."

  "Uh huh. Well, I just hope I won't have to chop an Abraham Lincoln animatronic to pieces down here. That would be just so ill."

  We followed the underground path a little further, into the second vaulted chamber—Glorian preferred to call them "rooms." It was a lot like the first one, complete with a monster waiting for me. Jeez, Bitsy, if they really wanted to kill me, you'd think they'd get together and jump on me all at once, instead of spreading themselves so thin. Hey, it was okay by me if they were too dumb to live.

  This one was a Giant Flaming Grasshopper. Try to imagine it for yourself, because I'm having trouble with these false eyelashes of yours. Where do you buy your accoutrements, honey? Lamston's? I mean, hell. I've found better makeup on worlds that hadn't made it into the Industrial Revolution yet. No offense. Hand me those little bitty scissors, okay? I have to trim the ends of these lashes or they poke me in the corner of my eye and drive me crazy! Thanks, Bits.

  The Grasshopper? Easy, I took Old Betsy to it. Three whacks, that's all. Without sweat. And when I slew the sucker, it disappeared, and there was a curled-up parchment scroll on the ground. I picked it up. "What's this?" I go.