Journey to the Unknown

by Jaclyn Cadell

  Emett came upon a family of magic users huddled together as some soldiers were pounding on their door to break it down. It only took Emett a few moments to eliminate the soldiers and confront the cowering family. Their use of magic was trivial, but Lord Taos didn't let that stop the literal interpretation of his instructions. The family were potters and used magic to finish the surface of their wares to an especially pleasing color and glow. These people could not possibly be any danger to Lord Taos, but that was beside the point, as far as he was concerned.

  Emett told them what was about to happen. He transported them one-by-one, beginning with the father, to The Undefeasible’s chamber where they would be safe while Emett and Alison took care of things in Yesenia. The children were absolutely fascinated by The Undefeasible and vice versa, so the first transfer was a resounding success.

  Alison, on the other hand, was faced with a different situation. A minor wizard was immersed in casting a complicated and difficult spell which was intended to favorably affect the weather. He was attempting to direct some rain onto a farm area which had been suffering a drought. The problem was that interruption of the spell in mid-casting would result in a storm which could well ravage dozens of farms. Therefore, he could not quit his work to run away, but he was immediately threatened by many soldiers who were wearing charms protecting them from most magic.

  The sergeant did have the good sense to halt while the wizard was in the midst of casting his spell, but the sergeant had his men poised to pounce once the wizard had finished. Alison's magic that she had readily to hand was inadequate to overcome the charms the soldiers wore. These charms were the work of Lord Taos, himself, so they were much more powerful and comprehensive than the usual charm concocted by the average wizard or sorceress. She didn't have time to work up a new spell in conjunction with Hat, so she had to depend more on her native wits.

  All she needed to do was to slow the soldiers down a bit, since the wizard could escape on his own once the spell was finished. He needed about 30 seconds to recover from the exertions of spell casting before transporting himself to safety. Therefore, a simple distraction was all that was needed to do the job. The charms the soldiers were wearing were designed to protect them from harm, but nothing was said about protecting them from pleasure. Alison cast a spell which would give the illusion of sweet cupcakes flying through the air toward the soldiers. Their instinct would be to duck and dodge the barrage of desserts, thus delaying them for the time the wizard needed to escape. She put a timer on the spell to trigger it the moment the wizard completed his current spell and to run for one minute before dissipating with a shower of milk. This spell would not harm the soldiers and trigger their protective charms, but it certainly should delay them for the necessary few seconds.

  Confident that her spell would work, Alison transported to her next magic user in need. This was a sorceress standing, nude, in a large vat. She was hip-deep in skunk cabbage! She had been in the midst of casting a spell to repair the inside surface of the vat in preparation for the manufacture of a batch of sauerkraut. Alison's mental broadcast had startled her and caused her to misstate some words in her spell. This mistake had caused her clothes to disappear and be replaced by an especially ripe batch of skunk cabbage! The woman still had not recovered her sensibilities and some soldiers were on the way to deal with her, so time was of the essence.

  Alison removed the skunk cabbage and dropped it onto the advancing soldiers. This disconcerted them enough to give Alison several minutes of working time. She whisked away the unpleasant odor of the skunk cabbage and clothed the woman in appropriate garb. Alison transported the woman to The Undefeasible's chamber and went on to the next person in need.

  Meanwhile, Emett was caught up in a tiff of his own. Whatever the soldiers were using as a method of identifying magic users, Emett had triggered it and had a squad charging at him. Emett's magical protection was adequate to protect him from the swords and spears of the soldiers, but his magic weapons were useless against that super protective charm that Lord Taos had fabricated. Unfortunately, a passive defense was not enough to help the innocent magic users who were being attacked. Therefore, Emett was forced to attack the soldiers pretty much as he would have back on Earth using his martial arts skills.

  Well, actually, he was not set back that far, but he was able to grab a solder by his legs and swing him around almost like a mace. This killed the unlucky soldier pretty quickly as soon as the melee started. But Emett kept swinging his body and mowing down the other soldiers in the squad. Emett had retained his great strength, so he was well able to clear out his enemies almost in the blink of an eye.

  Emett paused long enough to pick up one of the charms and drop it in his pocket. He figured that Alison might want to examine it after this bit of unpleasantness was over. This act played right into Lord Taos's hands, though neither one knew it, yet. Lord Taos had put a locater phrase in his charm spell so that he would know where each charm carrier was at all times; therefore, Lord Taos was able to follow Emett's every move. Luckily, there was no individual identification associated with the locater spell, so the charm carrier was anonymous. However, if Emett eventually was the only charm carrier who was moving around, that question became moot. At the moment, the possibilities associated with this lucky accident were lost on Lord Taos.

  Alison and Emett spent the rest of the day rescuing all of the magic users they could, though, of course, many of them were lost because the heroes simply could not be everywhere at once.

  That evening, the two met back at the safe house and considered what they should do the following day.

  Alison said, "Now that we have done what we could for the magic users, I think that we should visit the palace and see what we can do with Lord Taos."

  "I agree, but I think that we should be discrete with our first visit. We don't want to go barreling in an wind up in a fight before we know what we're facing."

  "You're right about that. Let's play the part of a couple of tourists out to see the sights in the big city. We can play it by ear from there. Now, come here, Big Boy, and show me what you can do with that weapon between your legs."

  Thus, Emett was distracted from telling Alison about the charm he had picked up. They were a bit tired from the busy day, so Alison confined herself to 10 orgasms and Emett settled for four. They had not forgotten how to use some of the most useful magic that they had learned!

  The next day, they showed up at the palace to play the part of tourists. Such is the naiveté of youth that they did not take into account the turmoil from the events of the previous day and how unlikely it would be for tourists to show up the day after a major purge of Yesenia's citizenry. They were dressed as ordinary middle class citizens and were rubber-necking right and left. Actually, the rubber-necking was legitimate, as they were trying to spot any place an enemy might hide. Also, it really was the first time for them to see the place that was foretold to be their new home, so they were genuinely curious.

  The chamberlain tumbled to their disguise the moment he saw them, though he had no idea who they actually were. He rushed in to see Lord Taos and prostrated himself—no matter how important you were, Lord Taos required that the forms be observed. Lord Taos let the chamberlain stew for a carefully timed 90 seconds before gesturing for him to rise to his knees and explain why he was interrupting Lord Taos's torture of a young boy.

  The boy had done nothing to deserve the torture, Lord Taos just had selected him at random from among the slaves. Lord Taos had decided to be artistic with this morning's relaxation by devising a new form of agony. The boy weighed about 60 pounds, so he was progressing rather slowly down on the spike he was impaled upon. If he had been heavier, he would have slid down faster, and the long spike stuck in his rectum would have killed him sooner. However, he was moving slowly, which gave Lord Taos more time to savor his screams. The artistic touch had been to station two dwarfs below the boy and have them start with his toes in a race to see who could flay the
boy first to his waist. The winner would receive the boy's testicles for desert that night. The limitation placed on the dwarfs was that they could not pull the boy down to let them reach higher. They had to wait for the boy to come to them.

  Lord Taos was lounging with a glass of fine wine and fingering the pussy of one of his slaves while he enjoyed the morning's entertainment. He was really pissed at the chamberlain's interruption, since the flayers were running in a dead tie so far and were about to begin on the boy's knees.

  Lord Taos impatiently gestured for the chamberlain to explain his uncouth interruption and listened to the story the chamberlain had to tell. The chamberlain knew that, if his interruption was not deemed important, the chamberlain would be the next featured entertainer at the following morning's event.

  "August Lord Taos, I beg to report that a young man and woman have entered the palace. They have represented themselves as tourists, but I cannot believe that tourists would visit your palace on the day after your purge. I wonder if they could be the two magic users you are so eager to find. If you wish, I can drive them away, or I could entice them into the dungeon below the palace and lock them in a cell until it was convenient for you to examine them. Only your Exalted Majesty will be able to discern if these are the two you seek." The chamberlain was careful to speak in such a way that Lord Taos would be sure to recognize the capital letters he had put on the titles.

  Lord Taos smiled and decided to let the chamberlain live a little while longer. "You are quite right in your concern, Xen. Please lock up the two you describe and I will get to them later in the day when I am not so busy."

  "Very well, Dread Lord Taos. It will be as you ordered." The chamberlain crawled backwards out of Lord Taos's presence before standing up. He shook himself and wiped the sweat from his brow as he contemplated what might have happened to him if Lord Taos had really been displeased with him. He could readily tell that his days were numbered as Lord Taos's chamberlain—he had already lasted longer than most at the job. He mentally kicked himself for not running away the moment Lord Taos's eye fell on him, though he knew that, by that time, it was already too late.

  Xen, the chamberlain, quietly replaced the guide who was conducting the tour of the palace. He said to the heroes, "Perhaps, you would care to see the collection of exotic animals that Lord Taos has in the cages below the palace. Everybody who had seen them has been thrilled at the sight. I am sure that you would be, too."

  Alison could tell that Xen was lying, but she could not tell why. Xen's reason for lying intrigued Alison, so she gave Emett a meaningful glance, and they followed Xen to the dungeon. He led them down three levels until they were well underground. Pointing to a cell with the door open, he said, "If you will wait in there where you will be safe, I will have the animals brought out."

  Both Emett and Alison knew that something fishy was going on, but they did not know what it could be. They were not worried that they could really be in danger, so they meekly went into the cell, and Xen slammed the door. Xen said with a smirk, "Please make yourselves comfortable. Lord Taos will be along soon to interview you."

  Hey, this was great! They would finally meet Lord Taos without having to spend a lot of time hunting him down. They were still confident that they could overcome any sort of magic that Lord Taos could throw at them, so they were not worried as they sat down on a bench to wait.

  Lord Taos was in a foul mood. The stupid boy had died from loss of blood before the dwarfs had flayed him to his waist. His whole scene was ruined because the slave had failed to cooperate. Lord Taos had tried to relieve his anger by burning the dwarfs alive, but even that had failed to raise his spirits. Perhaps he could get some joy from the two foolish tourists trapped in the dungeon.

  He never set foot on a dirty floor, so he levitated a bit and floated down to the cell where Alison and Emett were being held. He immediately lost his temper when they failed to observe protocol and prostrate themselves in the dirt before him. He caught himself just in time before blasting them with an explosive fire ball. However, he did rage at them for a good five minutes until his blood pressure returned to something more nearly normal.

  While all of this was going on, Alison encased Lord Taos in an escape-proof shell that she was careful not to let him see. Lord Taos had sensors out to detect hostile magic, but he missed being warned of the shell because Alison had made it protective of him. That way, the sensors ignored the presence of the energy field.

  Alison and Emett merely sat quietly on the bench while Lord Taos raved. When he quieted down, Emett said, "We are the ones whom you were trying to find in your purge yesterday. Don't you think that your extreme measures were rather over-blown and stupid? After all, if you had simply invited us to the palace, we would have been here in a trice. It looks to me like you are headed for a heart attack if you don't learn to be more calm in the face of adversity."

  This was all Lord Taos needed to hear to set him off again. Emett had achieved exactly the end he had been aiming for. He wanted Lord Taos to exhaust himself with ranting and raving before they got into a contest of magic with him.

  When Lord Taos's latest tirade ran out of steam, Alison asked, "Why are you being such a pompous fool? If you had been anywhere near reasonable, we might have given up as rulers of Magicktopia and let you have it with no contest. As it is, you now have generated within us a complete contempt for you and the way you act. Though I will admit that I cannot understand why you act the way you do."

  This set off another tirade from Lord Taos. He carried on for half an hour this time about how he was destined to be the ruler, first of Magicktopia, then of Home, and, ultimately, all of the other planes of existence that he could reach. It was almost funny, the way he was mentally and emotionally exhausted by his latest speech. It reminded the heroes of the speeches they had heard on TV from the likes of Hitler, Castro, and Chavez. Whoosh! What a blowhard!

  Chapter Eleven

  The one thing Lord Taos didn't expect was for the two heroes to applaud and laugh. This was more than Lord Taos could take! His appearance as a handsome middle-aged man began to shimmer and alternate with the semblance of an especially ugly looking Dragon. His appearance as a dragon was vaguely similar to The Undefeasible, but not nearly as handsome.

  Lord Taos seemed to realize what was happening to him, and he managed to get himself back under control. He announced, "Since you don't seem to appreciate the dire circumstances you are facing, I will leave you here to rot for a time while I tend to more important duties."

  With that statement, Lord Taos turned to float away back toward the stairs leading up to the main part of the palace. Unfortunately for him, he was still sorely pissed at the two heroes, so he did not pay attention to what was going on around him. As a result, he ran head on into the barrier that Alison had constructed to hold him in place. Lord Taos did not fall to the ground, but he did receive a hard knock on the forehead as he bounced off the shield.

  This was the last straw! Lord Taos underwent a complete change in appearance. He completely lost his temper and turned toward Alison and Emett. Now he looked like a pitifully misshapen dragon. No wonder he assumed a different look. His body was covered with what looked like randomly shaped scales of varying shades of gray. There appeared to be humps at odd intervals up and down his back as if he had been the unfortunate victim of an almost terminal case of rickets as a youngster. He had two forelimbs that were mere stubs of arms with grotesque hands having very short claws. His body was covered with short lengths of what looked like growths that were intended to be tentacles, but never made it.

  He had 20 pairs of legs and feet of different lengths, such that it looked like it was impossible to walk properly on them. His face was scary, not because it was fierce, but because it was so ugly. His muzzle was too short to be that of a proper Dragon, and it looked more like a human skull than much of anything else. Lord Taos looked so pitiable that Emett and Alison would have felt sorry for him if he had not been so evil.
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br />   Lord Taos gathered his malevolence into a ball of hate and launched it at Alison and Emett. Emett did not wait for Alison to concoct a defense, but jumped in front of her to intercept the magic ball with his own body. Alison simply could not react fast enough to do anything useful, so the ball of evil magic struck Emett dead center on his chest. There was a bright flash of light, and Emett fell to the floor in a kind of daze.

  Emett sat up and looked around to see what had happened. All three of the participants fully expected Emett to be dead, and none could figure out why he wasn't. After a moment, Emett felt something very warm in his pocket. It had taken time for the heat to work its way through his protective clothing. Emett was wearing his combat gloves, so he did not hesitate to reach into his pocket and pull out the thing that had gotten so hot.

  All three were stunned to see that it was the charm that Emett had taken from the soldier the day before and forgotten that he still had in his pocket. Lord Taos, himself, had fashioned the spell to resist magical forces using his most powerful spells and incantations. The charm was especially tuned to Lord Taos's magic, so it was particularly effective in blocking Lord Taos's offensive magic.

  Taos let out a scream of frustration and fury and disappeared. He had transported himself to places unknown.

  Alison helped Emett to his feet and said, "Emett, for God's sake, how did you know that charm would block Taos's magic blast?"

  "I didn't know, but you can damned well bet that I will always keep it with me from now on. The thing that we need desperately to do now is to find one for you to keep."