by Robert Bevan
“This wood is my home,” said Zanzifurl. “I would never betray it.”
Chaz shrugged. “I don't even know who the Dark Lord is.”
“And I believe you both,” said Hollywhirl. “But I cannot allow you to know the way to our Glade of Sanctuary.”
“That's reasonable,” said Chaz. “You don't know us, and you can't be too careful. So what, you want us to put on blindfolds or something?”
“Or something.” The rest of Hollywhirl's body appeared, and she was holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. Quick as the wind, she fired the arrow into Zanzifurl's chest, and he slumped over unconscious. She drew another arrow and smiled sympathetically at Chaz.
“Wait!” said Chaz. “I can just close my –”
It barely felt worse than a mosquito bite, but Chaz's eyelids now felt as heavy as the rest of him. His vision turned fuzzy, then dark, then nothing.
Chapter 24
Dave knocked on the door of the Whore's Head Inn. It budged open an inch. No one was manning the entrance, and it was quiet inside. The smell was familiar, but not as pungent with body odor. His heart quickened as he feared the worst.
“Hello?” he called in.
“The door's open,” Frank grumbled back. “Either come in or fuck off.”
That was slightly reassuring. Dave led Murkwort inside and found Frank, Rhonda, and Tony the Elf slouching at the bar, staring into their drinks. They appeared to be the only ones there. The rest of the common area looked like a restaurant that was either closed for the night or had gone out of business. The stools sat upside-down on top of the tables. A pile of broken glass had been swept into a corner and left there. A dead rat was pinned to the wall with a crossbow bolt. Judging by the state of it, it had been there for a few days.
“I was worried for a second,” said Dave. “I thought the place was abandoned, or Mordred had...” He didn't even want to finish the thought. “Where is everybody?”
Frank let out a shallow laugh. “This is everybody.”
“Where are all the others? I mean the ones who stuck around after you...” There was no respectful way to end that sentence.
“After I lost my shit?” Frank shrugged. “They could be anywhere. They made it a point not to say. We all had a big talk after you left. I'm sorry to tell you that the consensus was that you and the bard guy would most likely fuck things up even worse than they are now, and there was a good possibility that Mordred would get his dice back.”
Dave sighed. “Thank you for that vote of confidence.”
“Rather than being sitting ducks here, we decided that everyone should split off into groups of two or three and go their separate ways. Some had it in their heads that they'd go out and gain some levels until they were powerful enough to stand up to Mordred, that we should have been doing that with the Horsemen before. Others were just tired of having their hopes repeatedly crushed, and went out to try to make some sort of lives for themselves here.”
“What about the three of you?”
“We're the sitting ducks,” said Tony the Elf. “In the off chance that you two idiots managed to pull off some miracle, someone needed to stay behind and wait for you to come back.” He looked Murkwort up and down. “You haven't introduced your friend here. I trust he isn't a super-chill Mordred.”
“This is Murkwort,” said Dave. “He's the one that Katherine's friend sold the dice to.”
Frank perked up. He gawked at Murkwort with wide eyes. “Do you still have them?”
Murkwort cleared his throat. “I'm afraid not. I mounted them on some jewelry and re-sold them to rich wizards on the Crescent Shadow.”
“Gah!” shrieked Frank, shaking his little fists. “Do you have their names? Do you know how to find them?”
As big an asshole as Frank had recently been, Dave felt bad about putting him through this. “They were anonymous transactions.”
Murkwort nodded. “These aren't the sorts of people you want to go back on a deal with anyway. And if I expressed interest in re-obtaining something so magical and mysterious, the price they would demand would be astronomical.”
“I feel it's worth noting, though,” said Dave. “I've thought about it quite a bit since I met Murkwort here, and there's no evidence to suggest that Tim was behind Katherine's friend swiping your dice bag.”
“Evidence?” cried Frank. “He disappeared right after the dice did. How can you be so –” Frank's glare at Dave turned icier. “Wait a minute. You met with him, didn't you?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I knew it. He sold you some bullshit story about how he had nothing to do with it. He's totally innocent and somebody's trying to set him up.” Frank shook his head. “I know you two go back a ways. But I don't understand, after everything you've seen him say and do here, how you could believe anything that comes out of his mouth.”
“Not his mouth. His throat.” Dave sighed. “I probably should have started with this part. It's been a crazy couple of days.”
“What is it?” asked Rhonda.
“Tim's dead. Mordred slit his throat in front of all of us, then kicked him off the flying island.”
Frank finished the beer he'd been nursing, then set the glass down on the bar. “I'm sorry for your loss. It doesn't prove his innocence though. If anything, his being there at the same time as the dice is further evidence of his guilt as far as I'm concerned.”
“Frank!” Rhonda scolded him.
“Am I wrong?”
Rhonda walked around the bar to refill her own glass. “It doesn't much matter now. Mordred was also on the island at the same time as the dice, and that's a more important matter for us to concentrate our concern on.”
“Murkwort agreed to answer any questions we have about his transactions with the dice if we agree to answer his questions about what they are and where they came from.”
“What's left to ask?” said Tony the Elf. “He's already told us that he doesn't know who he sold them to, and that we've got little to no chance of getting them back. The best we could hope for now is that these rich wizards are powerful enough to keep their new treasures out of Mordred's hands. And that best case scenario still leaves us stranded here for the rest of our lives.”
“How can you say that after everything we've been through?” said Dave. “Look at all the challenges we've overcome simply by not giving up immediately after a problem presents itself. Was this how you played Caverns & Creatures back home? You must have been the shittiest players in the world.”
Anger flashed in Frank, Rhonda, and Tony the Elf's eyes. Dave had challenged their nerd integrity.
Tony the Elf stood up. “Let's start with you then, Idea Man. What's your big idea?”
“My big idea was to bring Murkwort here and try and come up with better ideas together.”
Rhonda heaved a big resigned sigh through her nose, like she was about to say something she didn't want to say.
“Dave's right. Look at us. We just got an opportunity thrown right onto our laps and we didn't even put ten seconds into thinking about how we might leverage it before instinctively concluding that it was another dead end.” She turned to Murkwort. “You've got connections on the island, right?”
Murkwort pursed his lips. “I have a few.”
“Don't be so modest,” said Dave. “They call him Murkwort the Magnificent.”
Rhonda scratched her chin. “A wizard with that kind of influence might be able to convince the people he sold the dice to how dangerous they are in the wrong hands.”
“That's true,” said Frank. “And if Mordred knows about the dice, he'll be hunting them down as well. If we play our cards right, we might be able to catch Mordred in the act of trying to steal one of the dice. And with this guy as our ally,” he gestured to Murkwort. “we stand a chance of swinging the fight in our favor.”
Tony the Elf nodded to himself. “We could actually come out of this with the dice and Mordred.”
Dave felt like
he'd just worked a minor miracle. He'd inspired optimism in some of the most defeatist sons of bitches he'd ever met. And although he knew that Frank and Tony the Elf were letting their imaginations run wild with unlikely specific scenarios, he allowed himself to join in their optimism that they might yet have a chance to return to the real world, and that Katherine might be able to have Tim resurrected. One day in the future they might all be sitting around tables in the Chicken Hut, rolling mundane plastic dice, looking back on all this as a wild and fucked-up memory. And Dave would think about this particular moment in time as the turning point at which he had rekindled hope, re-igniting the fire that shed light on the path back home.
He felt confident. He felt heroic even. He felt... some serious fucking pain in his abdomen.
“Ugh,” groaned Dave, doubled over in agony.
“Are you okay?” asked Tony the Elf.
“I don't... know,” said Dave, panting to get the words out. “It... ugh. Maybe my... appendix burst. What does... that... feel like?”
“Preposterous!” said Murkwort. “Appendixes don't just spontaneously burst.”
“That's... interesting... to know.” Dave grabbed Murkwort's arm to keep from falling over.
“You're probably just experiencing gastrointestinal issues. When's the last time you... relieved your bowels?”
Murkwort might have had a point. Dave couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a shit. He hadn't exactly been eating regularly over the past couple of days. Maybe his insides were all fucked up from starvation followed by all those fruity Crescent Shadow cocktails.
“Is there a lavatory in here?” Murkwort asked the others.
“There's an outhouse out back,” said Frank. “Through that door.”
“Come on, then.” Murkwort guided Dave through the Whore's Head Inn from one opening to the other, as if they were enacting a macrocosm of the shit traveling through his own alimentary canal.
By the time they made it through the back door, the pain had spread to the rest of his internal organs, and even out to his knees and elbows.
“What... the fuck... is happening... to me?” Dave wasn't sure if a shit was going to solve his problems, but if that's what it was going to take, it was going to be the biggest shit ever. Fortunately, by the light of the full moon, he was able to see that the scraps of fabric they used for toilet paper were in plentiful supply.
The pain suddenly intensified tenfold. Dave's vision turned red as he felt like he was imploding and exploding at the same time. His bowels did, in fact, evacuate themselves, but it provided no relief. He thought he heard the distant sound of Murkwort screaming as his consciousness slipped away.
Chapter 25
Five bars had produced nothing except a puddle of vomit in the alley between the last two of them. Julian couldn't handle his morning liquor. Stacy wasn't thrilled to be rocking a Saturday night buzz on the mid-morning of whatever the fuck day this was, especially since they weren't getting any information out of it. But what could they do but persevere?
The sign outside the next bar on the strip, the Mortar & Pestle, exuded more of a pharmacy vibe than a place-to-get-shitfaced vibe, but it could also be meant to appeal to wizards looking for an alchemical mix of booze.
“I don't think I can do this again,” said Julian.
“Come on, soldier!” Stacy gently shook him until his eyes focused on hers. “We need your Diplomacy.” She slapped him lightly on the cheek a couple of times.
“It's, like, eight o'clock in the fucking morning. If I see another shot of liquor right now, I'm going to throw up again. That's going to count as a penalty on my...” he let out a long cavernous burp. “...Diplomacy check.”
The smell of that burp, having come from deep down within him, convinced Stacy that he wasn't exaggerating.
“Okay, sit this one out.” There was a courtyard in front of the Mortar & Pestle surrounded by a two-foot-high wall. Stacy considered laying Julian down next to the wall so that he wouldn't be visible from passers by on the street, but her experience in this world so far told her that would all but guarantee they'd be separated. “Can you at least come inside? I'll put you in a booth, and you don't have to drink anything.”
Julian nodded.
It wasn't an ideal compromise. All the bartenders at this time of the morning were young attractive women, no doubt meant to cajole every last copper piece out of the loneliest and drunkest men still managing to stumble from bar to bar. Stacy had been counting on Julian's male charms to likewise assist in cajoling information out of them. Maybe she'd get lucky and this one would be into chicks.
Supporting Julian by his arm over her shoulders, Stacy walked through the entrance of the Mortar & Pestle and immediately spotted two red flags.
The first was the presence of another customer. It was more difficult, and costlier, to keep a bartender chatty when she had to divide her attention between multiple patrons. The well-dressed human man at the end of the bar only glanced her way briefly as she lugged Julian through the door. He looked like a young Richard Gere, and was one of a very exclusive selection of men who could pull off a floppy beret and an ascot.
The second red flag was the lack of enthusiasm in the bartender's greeting. It wasn't like the woman in the first bar who was simply in a rotten mood. The vibe Stacy was picking up from this girl was one of complete indifference. She didn't give a shit that two more customers had just walked in. This was just a job for her, and kind of a shitty one at that. As a disengaged graveyard-shift employee, she was less likely to have the knowledge Stacy was looking for. At least, that was Stacy's assessment of the situation, and she was making a lot of assumptions based on very little evidence. As long as she was here, she might as well find out what she could. She dumped Julian in a booth and took a stool at the bar.
“Howdy.”
The half-elven bartender meandered over with heavy eyes and sighed. “What can I get for you?”
“One of whatever you're having,” said Stacy, trying to send out a vibe that could be misinterpreted as trying to be seductive.
“I'm not having anything.”
Ouch. A swing and a miss. Not only had Stacy failed to establish a friendly repartee, but now she had to actually choose a drink. She didn't want to stick around long enough to finish a beer, and she still felt a little funny about saying the word stonepiss to complete strangers. She scanned the shelves behind the bar until her gaze landed on the oddly-shaped black bottle in front of the other patron, down at the end of the bar. It was made of shiny black glass, wide and round at the bottom, with a long thin neck that rose diagonally and curved over like a scorpion tail. The stinger-shaped stopper lying next to the bottle suggested that the scorpion imagery had been intentional. She remembered the giant scorpion Professor Goosewaddle had conjured up in her boss's office back in Bay St. Louis, her first introduction to the magic of this world. Perhaps fate had led her here to try this drink.
“What's that guy drinking?” she asked, nodding toward the other patron.
“Scorpion's Kiss,” said the man at the end of the bar.
“I'm sorry. I thought I was being more discreet.”
“It's distilled from the venom of scorpionfolk.” The man turned the bottle over and filled his glass. The curved neck made it seem like it would be impossible to pour a shot without spilling half the bottle all over the bar, but he filled the glass to within a hair's breadth of the rim without spilling a single drop. “See if it suits you.”
The glass slid along the bar like they do in the movies, except that this guy hadn't touched it.
Stacy caught the glass, and a couple of drops sloshed over the rim onto her finger.
“Impressive.”
The man smiled. “Thank you.”
Stacy's finger tingled where the booze had sloshed onto it. She brought her hand to her mouth and touched the drops with her tongue, which picked up the tingle more immediately. “Is this stuff okay to drink? You said it's made of venom, right?”
“It's no worse for you than anything in these other bottles. The fatal properties of the venom itself are neutralized in the distillation process, but it provides something of an exhilarating sensation in one's insides.”
“Neat.” Stacy swigged back the shot and brought the glass back down on the bar a little harder than she'd meant to. She caught a flicker of annoyance on the bartender's face.
“What do you think?” asked the man at the end of the bar.
Stacy felt that same tingling sensation all the way down her esophagus, then spreading out along the inner walls of her stomach.
“It's like plum flavored boozy peroxide, except way better than that sounds now that I've said it aloud. Thanks.” She smiled and slid the glass back to him. The drinks must have been affecting her Dexterity. The glass didn't make it halfway before sliding right off the bar and smashing into shards on the floor. “Oops.”
“Unbelievable,” said the bartender, not even trying to mask her contempt.
“I'm sorry,” said Stacy. “I'll clean it up.”
“You've done enough. I've got it.”
Stacy wondered what kind of dire beast crawled up this bitch's ass. She could appreciate that it was not an ideal time of day to be awake and serving liquor to obnoxious drunks like herself, and she understood what a pain in the ass broken glass was to clean up, trying to make sure every tiny fragment was accounted for so that no one would get hurt, but this was just plain bad customer service.
The bartender produced an oddly-shaped copper jug from under the bar. It had a pitcher handle on one side, but instead of a spout on the other side, the entire side was flat. She carried it around to the front and upturned it, pouring out a viscous orange ooze which completely covered the glass shards. Leaving the puddle of goop on the floor, she walked through a door at the rear of the establishment, then emerged a few seconds later with a live grey rat in an iron cage barely large enough to contain it.
“Awww,” said Stacy. “What's his name?”
The bartender rolled her eyes as she lowered the rat cage into the jug by a steel chain. She tipped the jug over on its flat side next to the ooze, which immediately started to move slowly toward it, then into it.
