by Robert Bevan
Shaggy only made it a few steps toward the table before he ran into the back of Professor Goosewaddle, who popped into existence right in his path, accompanied by Jennifer. Curly fries and lettuce spilled all over the floor.
“Shaggy!” screeched another goblin, stomping out from the kitchen. This one, according to her name tag, was named Velma. “Did you drop that –” She stopped when she recognized Goosewaddle and Jennifer, neither of whom looked pleased to be there. She bowed. “Professor. We were not expecting you so soon.” Without waiting for a response, she dropped to her knees and helped Shaggy scoop up everything from the floor and return it to the tray.
“You!” said Jennifer, seething at Chaz. “Didn't we tell you never to come –”
“Stop!” said Professor Goosewaddle. “We'll deal with him in a moment.” He peered up at Paul, who was trembling and sweating even more than before. “Now what was that message about? How much did they take? Did you see which way they went?”
Paul started sobbing. “There wasn't any robbery. I don't know why I sent that message. Please don't let the goblins beat me!”
This was sad to the point that Chaz felt embarrassed for Paul. “That was my fault. I put him up to it. I used a Suggestion spell on him.”
“What?” cried Paul. He sniffed back some snot and used his sleeve to wipe away tears and sweat from his fat cheek. “You violated my mind! That's... That's like raping me!” The fact that he hesitated long enough to think about it, then followed through anyway made it even worse.
“Take it easy, Special Victims Unit. That wasn't even in the same ballpark as –”
“Wait a minute,” said Julian, scowling at Chaz. “Did you do that to me too?”
Chaz shrugged. “Yeah. Why do you think I suddenly broke out in song?”
“It seemed a little weird at the time, but not as much as it does now.” Julian rubbed his temples. “Stay out of my head.”
“I'm sorry,” said Chaz. “Maybe I should have used Diplomacy instead.”
“Huh? Oh.” Julian shot him another annoyed glare, then turned to Professor Goosewaddle, who had only allowed this conversation to go on as long as it had because his attention was more focused on the fried chicken leg he was eating. “I hear you went to Popeye's. What did you think?”
“Outstanding,” Goosewaddle responded with his mouth full of chicken. His white mustache and beard were slick with grease and specked with fried batter crumbs. “When I open mine, I shall enjoy one of those biscuits every afternoon.”
Julian licked his lips. “They are good biscuits.”
There you go, Julian. Butter him up just like a Popeye's biscuit.
Professor Goosewaddle turned sharply to Chaz. “Now you can start explaining yourself. We had an agreement. In exchange for taking you to the Crescent Shadow, you were never to come back to this restaurant again. Why did you break your part of the bargain, deceive me, and interrupt my meal?”
Jennifer crossed her arms and stared at Chaz with eyes full of attitude, as if daring him to give a satisfactory answer to Goosewaddle's question.
Chaz stared down at the floor, hoping Julian would say something. Two goblins were still picking up curly fries and bits of salad and putting them back onto the tray. When the silence continued, Chaz took a deep breath and forced the words out. “We need you to take us to the Crescent Shadow.”
The professor's chicken leg bone trembled in his hand. “Have I lost my mind? Or did you just ask me to take you to the Crescent Shadow again?”
“Look, I know it's –”
“You were just there! If you like the place so much, why did you not simply stay?”
“I fell off.”
“I did, too,” said Julian. “Actually, it was more like I was tricked into jumping, but –”
“Here you are!” said Velma, holding up the tray in front of Chaz. “I apologize for the delay.”
“That's been on the floor. We paid ten gold pieces for that.” Chaz suddenly remembered his situation, and could practically feel the burn of Professor Goosewaddle's glare. “I mean, thank you. This looks delicious.” He accepted the tray.
“Very well,” said Professor Goosewaddle, his tone suddenly much friendlier. “I've prepared some extra Teleport spells today. I shall help you this one last time.”
Chaz and Julian sighed with relief.
“Thank you so much!” said Julian. “I've got to go get Ravenus. I'll be right back.” He hurried out the door.
“Goosewaddle!” said Jennifer, gaping at him as though he'd just stabbed her in the heart. “We talked about this.”
Professor Goosewaddle smiled up at her. “Take heart, Jessica. If not for these fine gentlemen, I would never have discovered the wonder that is fast food.”
Chaz winked at her. Suck it, Jennifer. Never underestimate the power of high Charisma scores.
Jennifer's fists trembled with frustration as she turned back to Goosewaddle. “But Professor, they made a deal with you, and –”
“You should come with us,” said Professor Goosewaddle. “You've been so kind to take me to these wonderful places in your world. I would like to show you as wondrous a spectacle on this one.”
Chaz cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Professor. Didn't you say last time that there was a bigger risk of missing the mark if you took more than two of us at a time?”
Jennifer's eyes pleaded with Goosewaddle for a moment, then she hung her head and nodded. “That's very kind of you, Professor.”
“I'd like to see the Crescent Shadow,” said Paul.
Goosewaddle glared up at him with an expression of disbelief. “Velma, Shaggy. Take him in the back and beat him with sticks.”
The two goblins giggled gleefully as they escorted a sobbing Paul into the kitchen.
Julian came back in with Ravenus on his shoulder. “Okay. Ready to go.” His cheerfulness dimmed as he tried to read Chaz's expression. “What's the matter? Where'd Paul go?”
“There was a problem with the fryer,” Chaz blurted out. He hadn't expected to be able to get to the Crescent Shadow without having to suck a dick, and the last thing he needed was Julian wasting time lecturing Goosewaddle on human rights violations in the workplace and making him reconsider his unexpected generosity. “We should really get moving.”
Professor Goosewaddle sat cross-legged on the shiny linoleum floor and held his hands out for Jennifer and Chaz. Chaz, Julian, and Jennifer followed his lead. Chaz set his Arby's tray on his lap and joined hands with Goosewaddle to his right and Julian to his left.
“Is everyone ready?” asked Goosewaddle.
The rest of them nodded. While Chaz was relieved that sucking dick was no longer in the cards for him, he was apprehensive about going back to the Crescent Shadow. It was a place for rich and powerful wizards, and he and Julian were trying to relieve them of magical artifacts which they'd recently paid a lot of money for. As far as Chaz knew, Julian didn't have any more of an idea than he did as to how they were supposed to do that. Maybe sucking dick was still in the cards after all.
Goosewaddle closed his eyes and whispered an incantation. The restaurant disappeared, and they were all sitting on cool sand. Five hundred feet above them, the Crescent Shadow hung in the night sky, sporadically illuminated by the fireworks and other magical lights flying erratically around it like bees near a hive.
Chaz's heart skipped a beat when he realized what had happened and how lucky they were. He turned to Goosewaddle, whose hand he was now squeezing. “I guess if you're aim was going to be off, this was the best possible alternative destination we could have hoped for.”
Professor Goosewaddle yanked his hand free of Chaz's grip. “My aim was one hundred percent accurate, thank you very much.” He got to his feet, made a token gesture at helping Jennifer to hers, then brushed the sand off his ass. “You wanted me to take you to the Crescent Shadow, and so I have. The island is named for the shadow it casts upon the Fertile Desert. It is not as well-defined in the moonlight, but perhap
s you shall enjoy a better view of it in the morning. That is, of course, provided that the island has not jumped by then.”
Julian forced out a weak laugh. “You're joking, right?” His wavering voice suggested he was well aware that this was no joke. “You're not going to leave us out here to die, are you?”
“Whether you live or die is none of my concern.” Goosewaddle wagged his finger at Chaz. “This one made a promise to me, then went back on it.”
“But...” Julian paused, hopefully thinking up some miracle stroke of Diplomacy. “But we introduced you to Arby's.” Chaz grimaced and shook his head, but Julian kept on going. “Without us, you would never have –”
“That was my part of the bargain!” Professor Goosewaddle snapped back, just as Chaz expected he would. “My debt is paid.”
Julian turned to Jennifer, a move which Chaz wouldn't have recommended if they weren't already fucked beyond hope. “You can't let him do this. You're one of us.”
Unsurprisingly, Jennifer laughed and shook her head. “I told him he should have just Fireballed you.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm not one of you. I've got talent and ambition. I've been working my ass off since high school to pay my way through college, working three jobs and getting shit on by good-for-nothing middle-management assholes every step of the way. Professor Goosewaddle recognizes my administrative talents and treats me with respect. He listens to my advice, and he and I are going to make mountains of money because of it. You and your loser friends would do well to show the professor similar respect and stop taking advantage of his generous nature.”
Chaz had to admit she made some valid points, but he felt he had an equally valid counterpoint. He set the Arby's tray down on the sand next to him and stood up to look her in the eye. “But this is murder!”
“I'm sure you guys know this fucked-up world way better than I do. It's a dangerous place. Fuck with wizards at your own risk.” She looked down at Professor Goosewaddle. “Can we go back home now?”
“I actually did want to show you the island,” said the professor. “We deserve a break, and I think you'll find it fascinating.” He offered Jennifer his hand.
Jennifer accepted it with a smile. “You know what? You're right. We do deserve a break.”
Time was running out. Chaz turned to Julian, hoping he'd give Diplomacy one more try. But Julian looked dumbstruck, cradling his stupid bird like an asshole.
With no options left, Chaz did the only thing he could think of. He lunged at Goosewaddle, trying to grab him before he said his incantation.
Goosewaddle and Jennifer disappeared, and he sailed through the empty air and landed hard on the sand.
“Real nice,” said Julian. “Just like you did at the Whore's Head. You tried to fuck us all over to get yourself to safety. And you failed again.”
Chaz turned over. “This isn't anything like that. I was going to get help and come back for you.” In truth, he had just been acting on instinct and hadn't given a single thought about Julian, but Julian didn't need to know that.
“Save it. We have to figure out a way to get up there before the island jumps.”
Chaz scanned their surroundings, but it was too dark for him to see very far. Nothing but sand in every direction. Even if they were able to pull some miracle out of their asses, it would almost definitely involve having to endure the ascent rather than teleporting up there. “Maybe we're not far from the edge of the desert.”
“We can't count on that,” said Julian. “Ravenus, fly up there and see if you can get someone to help us. But don't stay too long. I don't want the island to jump with you still on it.”
“Very good, sir.” Ravenus rocketed into the air and quickly disappeared against the black sky.
Julian sat down cross-legged, placed his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. “In the meantime, I'll start my meditation.”
“What the fuck good is that going to do us?” asked Chaz.
“I need my four hours of meditation before I can prepare my spells.”
“Four hours? How do you know that island is going to still be there in four hours?”
Julian shrugged. “I don't.”
“Do you even have any spells that can get us up there?”
“None come to mind, but I might be able to get creative with something. If Ravenus finds someone to help us, shake me awake. Otherwise, just let me finish. If the island disappears or I can't figure out a way to use magic to get us up there, I'll prepare a bunch of Mount spells and hope we're close enough to the edge of the desert to survive the trip.”
Chaz shrugged. It was a better plan than any he could think up. He lay on the sand and stared up at the fireworks exploding out from the Crescent Shadow, wondering if Goosewaddle or Jennifer were feeling even the tiniest bit of guilt over leaving them to die in the desert.
Chapter 11
Stacy woke up with a splitting headache. In fact, her entire body ached, like she'd just been in a –
Memories came flooding back, and she opened her eyes. Unsure if she'd done it properly the first time, she closed her eyes and opened them again. It was completely dark. She was either blind, or there was simply no light in this... wherever the hell she was.
With aching arms, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. The floor felt like hard-packed earth. Coarse grit pressed into her palms. The air tasted like old sweat. When she was sitting upright, she closed her eyes again, then placed the tips of her fingers against her eyelids and felt the eyeballs under them. She still had eyes. That was good.
Feeling around the back of her head, she felt a lump where one of those rat-guys had clobbered her with what felt like a sack of lead shot. What she didn't feel, however, was the magic hair clip. That was bad.
She was frustrated with how the whole thing had gone down. She'd barely gotten a word in when they all turned into rat-people and jumped her. In hindsight, she supposed she should have been more subtle, easing into things before she started asking about Tim. Or maybe she would have been better off forgoing the ruse and skipping straight to the violence. She and Cooper could have –
Cooper!
She wanted to call out to him, but that would let her captors know that she was awake before she had a chance to figure out where she was. And whatever Cooper's current state, she couldn't see how shouting his name would change it.
Then again, if he was nearby, there wouldn't be any harm in whispering for him.
“Cooper?”
No answer. In fact, there was hardly any sound at all. If she hadn't just heard herself whisper Cooper's name, she would have thought she'd gone deaf as well as blind.
She crawled slowly across the dirt floor, pawing at the ground ahead of her and on either side, trying to form a mental image of her surroundings. Finally, her hand found a wall ahead of her. It felt like old bricks. The mortar crumbled as she ran a finger against it. With both hands on the wall, she got to her feet and felt up as high as she could reach. There was just more wall. She started walking cautiously along the wall, keeping her left hand against it and holding her right hand in front of her. Three steps later, she found a corner. After repeating the process three more times, she confirmed that she was in a ten-foot by ten-foot cell of some kind. But strangely, there didn't seem to be a door. It was bricked in on all sides.
It was possible, she supposed, that she'd been immured like in Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, but that was doubtful. If she'd been unconscious long enough for someone to brick her in, she was sure she'd be hungrier than she was now. But there must be a way in and out. The brickwork didn't feel stable enough to be able to accommodate some kind of intricate secret door mechanism. Dropping to her hands and knees, she couldn't feel any hatches or grooves in the floor.
She stopped pawing at the floor as a thought occurred to her. Looking up, she still saw nothing but total blackness, but she wondered...
After feeling her right boot to confirm that her attackers hadn't
removed the dagger she kept hidden in it, she took off her left boot and stood up. She tossed the boot straight up, estimating that it would go about twenty feet high uninterrupted by a ceiling. There was no sound of impact until the boot hit the ground in front of her in line with her estimation. She was either in an extremely high-ceilinged cell or, more likely, a pit.
She considered tossing the boot at an angle to get some hint as to how deep the pit was by listening for it to land outside, but quickly dismissed that idea. The height of the walls was only important insofar as to determine whether or not they were too high for her to jump up and catch the edge of. If she threw her boot out of the pit to discover they were too high, she'd still be stuck down here, but with only one boot. The better way to find out was to just go for it.
Once she found her boot, she put it on and felt for the nearest wall. She stepped backward, carefully estimating the distance as she walked, until her back touched the opposite wall. Then she ran forward and jumped as hard as her legs could launch her. She didn't feel the wall with her fingers, but she felt it pretty damn hard with her face and breasts.
“Fuck,” she whispered when she hit the ground. “That hurt.” She blew her hair out of her face and licked her upper lip. The salty taste confirmed that she was bleeding from her nose.
Thinking she might have more success if she jumped half a second earlier, she turned around and ran at the opposite wall. That effort hurt just as much as the first, but she did manage to touch the wall with her fingers in addition to her face and breasts. Unfortunately, what she felt was still vertical.
Though she didn't relish the idea of slamming herself into a wall a third time, she couldn't help but wonder if she was missing the top by just a fraction of a centimeter. She struggled back to her feet, took a deep breath, and steeled herself for the next impact.
“Stop! Stop!” said a woman's voice through laughter. Stacy recognized her as Dolazar. “I cannot bear to watch again. Truly, it is too much.”
With a loud crack, the pit was flooded with white light shining from a foot-long stick in Dolazar's hand as she stood at the edge of the pit, fifteen feet above Stacy, well out of jumping range. She smirked at Stacy as she peered down at her through a peculiar pair of opaque black steampunk goggles. Stacy's Cloak of Elvenkind hung loosely from Dolazar's shoulders. It wasn't something she'd need to wear while skulking around in the dark, but it was a nice touch for rubbing salt in the wound.
