With a crash of bar stools and a clatter of beer mugs, King Hofnar threw himself upon King Sterling while simultaneously throwing up on King Sterling.
A very messy brawl ensued.
Outside the tavern, gray drizzle puddled the ground.
The bouncer in shining armor kicked open the door and hurled King Hofnar face-first into the mud. Princes and kings crowded the doorway, jeering, with King Sterling and Prince Savage leading the assault.
“You’re no king!” called King Sterling. “Come back when you learn to be civilized — or at least sober!”
Paul pushed through the crowd and dropped to his knees in the mud beside his father.
“I’m here,” he said, but King Hofnar just pushed his son away. Battered and humiliated, the king forced himself to his feet and staggered alone into the gathering darkness.
Paul watched him go. He didn’t know what else to do.
The mocking laughter from the tavern echoed louder and louder, swirling around Paul like a pack of wolves gathering to feast. He could feel his face burning with shame, could feel hot prickles racing along his skin and his stomach churning into fiery knots. Squinting his eyes as tightly as he could, he tried to shut everything out—
SPLASH! Mud spattered his face. When he looked, he saw that Savage had thrown his father’s battered crown into a puddle beside him.
“Don’t bother getting up,” Savage said, crouching beside the muddy prince. “You’re right where you belong.”
Paul wanted to rise. He wanted to say something strong. He wanted to shove Savage away and show everyone how wrong they were about him, but he couldn’t. The Curse within him had grown powerful, feeding on all the humiliating jeers until it finally pounced atop Paul, crushing him beneath its overwhelming weight. And just to show how terribly serious it was, the Curse had even capitalized itself.
His heart raced.
Razors of sweat sliced down his scalp.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t even move.
Reality seemed to warp around him as the laughter solidified into a physical presence that battered him with unrelenting cruelty. He felt as if he were being sucked into a whirlpool of leering faces. Down, down, down he plunged. Far above him, Savage loomed like a giant nightmare, his laughter booming down with the concussive force of thunder.
Turning aside, trying to find any quarter that might give him comfort, Paul saw his father’s crown. He reached for it, but Savage kicked him over with a muddy boot. Paul’s face landed hard in a puddle.
“Come on!” Savage taunted. “Get up! Get up and smite me, Prince Charming! I challenge you, right here, right now!”
Paralyzed with shame, the humiliated prince couldn’t have gotten up even if he’d wanted to do so. He left his face lying in the puddle and closed his eyes.
All he wanted to do was vanish.
“You’re pathetic,” Savage spat. “Do us all a favor — go questing and get turned to stone or something.”
Stepping back, Savage kicked mud in Paul’s face one last time before returning to the warmth of the tavern.
Clutching his father’s sad little crown to his chest, Paul tried to draw warmth from the cold lump of metal. Unfortunately, all it did was hurt him.
10
DATE NIGHT
All afternoon, gloomy rainclouds clotted the skies above Theandrea. When they finally broke, they revealed that night had crept in when no one was looking. Warm, golden lights blinked to life within every window of the magnificent city, welcoming people home to warm meals and warmer beds. As the night hugged Theandrea ever deeper into its bosom, those lights winked out one by one.
All was quiet.
But not all was still.
A shadow passed over the crescent moon and descended in a swirl of charcoal mist. It spiraled out of the starry sky and settled upon a delicate battlement high atop the Imperial Castle. The foul mist poured itself into a man-shaped space, growing blacker and blacker until it finally assumed physical form.
Seeboth the Shadow Wizard surveyed the castle from beneath his heavy black cowl, his eyes slowly burning their way across all that was bright and good. Satisfied, he whisked through an archway.
He entered a long, vaulted corridor fashioned from the most exquisitely cut stone, only to find himself facing a burly imperial guard clad in gleaming gold armor. The guard instantly dropped into a defensive crouch, his shield up and his sword poised. “Halt! Who dares trespass—”
Seeboth barely gestured.
With a rumble, the wall sprouted a tangle of arms that grasped the terrified guard and pinned him within their grip of stone. Trapped by the interlocking web of granite biceps yet unable to accept the impossible event that had just victimized him, the guard took the only reasonable course of action open to him and passed out.
At the end of the corridor, a pair of heavy oaken doors blocked Seeboth’s path, but not for long. Under the sheer force of his gaze, they began to melt, which astute readers may realize is not something wood typically does. Both doors pooled upon the floor like puddles of brown wax, melting outward from handles to hinges. In so doing, the doors parted like a pair of curtains pulling back from a stage and they revealed a sight that took Seeboth’s breath away.
Even someone like the dark wizard Seeboth, Lord of Shadows, found himself transfixed when looking upon the beauty of Princess Luscious. She lay stretched beneath her satin sheets, her body a series of hidden, luxurious curves.
He stared at her for a long moment.
His eyes unexpectedly softened…
…but then he spun and pointed at the far wall. Fire jetted from his finger and seared writhing letters of green flame into the stone.
EMPEROR DUNCAN, WEEP.
SEEBOTH.
Upon hearing the harsh crackle of the flames, Princess Luscious woke. Her eyes widened at the sight of the terrifying silhouette standing backlit against the inferno of green fire.
“You came!” she squealed.
Seeboth gestured. The princess instantly levitated from her bed and floated across the room to hover beside him. She squealed again.
“I saw your ad,” he said.
Princess Luscious threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “I knew it would work!”
“Princess? I heard a noise — are you all right?”
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Laura entered the chamber to check on the commotion, but she didn’t get very far. Seeboth pointed his finger at her and used the merest fraction of the magical power it contained to levitate her.
“Ahhhhhh!” Laura shrieked as invisible forces yanked her body into the air.
Seeboth prepared to gesture again, but Princess Luscious grabbed the wizard’s arm.
“No, wait! Don’t hurt her! She’s mine!”
Seeboth tore his scowl away from the intruding handmaiden and turned it instead upon the princess. Its intensity could not withstand the concentrated force of her beauty, and his expression once again softened. Reluctantly he lowered his arm, but as a nod to his inner wickedness, he left Laura floating ten feet above the floor.
“As you wish, princess,” he said.
Princess Luscious shot a sideways smile at Laura and mouthed the words, “See? I told you so!”
Throwing his cloak wide, the wizard enfolded Princess Luscious within the sweep of his robes so only their faces remained visible atop the billows of dark cloth. Hesitantly, tenderly, he brushed the hair from her cheek.
“How long I have waited for one such as you,” he whispered into her ear. His voice was deep and husky. “And I have so much planned for us. First, a romantic cruise to the edge of the world, and then, after a quick stop at Treasury Island—”
“Ooh! Pirates!” Princess Luscious squealed. “How exotic!
“Yes, and after that, I shall take you to the full moon… and beyond.”
His dark eyes.
His romantic words.
His magic finger.
Princess Lus
cious beamed. Her abduction was everything she had hoped it would be.
Before Laura could voice a protest — not that it would carry any weight since she herself was currently weightless and floating ten feet above the floor — the wizard and the princess flared from the balcony in a storm of shadows.
Far beyond the coastline of Theandrea, Seeboth’s three-masted Shadowship, the Dawnslayer, jutted from the sea like a giant, bristling beetle made of blackened bone. From the night sky, a swirl of shadows crashed down onto the deserted deck. Before those shadows swirled away into nothing, they disgorged Seeboth and Princess Luscious from their depths.
The princess squinted and blinked several times, trying to get her bearings, but Seeboth allowed her no time for such frivolities. Taking her hand firmly but gently, he escorted her down a narrow flight of stairs into the hold. The stairs ended abruptly at a heavy iron door that was reinforced with rusty strips of metal and studded with great, spiked rivets that looked like the teeth of some monstrous beast. It was quite frightening.
Princess Luscious gasped.
Not because of the door, though.
Because of the thing standing beside the door.
It was a demonic Terror.
The use of the capitalized word “Terror” in this case is not an extravagant hyperbole, but a statement of fact. The dark wizard Seeboth, Lord of Shadows, had summoned this creature from a race of Demons known as The Terrors and had bound it to serve as his henchman.
So terrible were The Terrors that even the The before their name was too terrible a The for a mere the to communicate the horrible The-ness of it all.
Though the Terror stood no taller than Princess Luscious, its presence caused her to feel incredibly small. The beast had skin like beef jerky and a wrinkled face like a skull shoved inside a prune. Armed with claws, saw-blade fangs, and reflexes like a whip-crack, the sense of danger he radiated surrounded him like bad cologne. Skin-tight black leather encased his body, and four huge brass buckles gleamed across his leather-plated chest.
“Um… what is that?” Princess Luscious asked.
The only response she received was a harsh shove as the Demon kicked open the iron door and launched her into the cell beyond. With a KRANG, he closed and locked the door behind her.
Seeboth glared at the Demon.
The Demon glared at Seeboth.
After a long moment, the creature finally spoke.
“My lord… you were brilliant!”
Seeboth instantly relaxed. One could see the tension release from his shoulders, even though they were hidden beneath his padded cowl, and he allowed himself a barely perceptible sigh.
The Demon continued, “I watched the entire episode from the mirror. Sheer artistry!”
“You honestly think so, Demog?” Seeboth asked. “I was somewhat concerned I’d overdone it. The whole ‘arms’ thing?”
Seeboth flared about and, with one wicked sweep of his hand, threw back his hood to finally reveal his face: a bit tired-looking for forty years old, but handsome for an evil sorcerer.
“Not at all, my lord,” Demog said, shaking the ugly knob of his head. “Power such as yours demands abuse.”
“I made a good impression, then?”
“Of a certainty.”
“I hope so.” Seeboth sighed. “First impressions are so terribly important when defining a working relationship.”
On the other side of the iron door, Princess Luscious gleamed like a lily in the midst of a cesspool. Her cell was cramped. A grimy bench stretched along one wall, and a rack of shelves stocked with an extensive collection of spider webs stretched along another. The air smelled of mildew and rotting fish — at least she hoped it was rotting fish — and a strange purple mold grew across the walls and seemed to growl whenever she drew near. She stopped drawing near and decided to remain standing in the center of the room.
She also decided she didn’t like this anymore. “Excuse me!” she called, turning toward the door. “I don’t think this is working out—”
But the words froze in her throat as the blood froze in her veins.
A scruffy rat had emerged from a crack in the wall. All mangy hair and beady eyes, his long pink tail poked through a slit in the tattered black longcoat he wore. The rat was not nearly so cute as Squeaker and his dancing mouse friends back at the castle. Luscious had to admit she wished those mice were here, dancing with her right now. She’d failed to realize that taking a walk on the dark side would expose her to a lower class of rodents.
The rat’s name was Rupert, and he looked her up and down as if he might devour her.
Princess Luscious screamed and leaped onto the bench.
The purple moss growled at her.
She screamed again and jumped down.
Rupert leered at her.
She screamed yet again and leaped back up.
It was going to be a long night.
Elsewhere on the Shadowship there existed an even more dismal place than Princess Luscious’ exceedingly dismal cell.
Seeboth’s private cabin.
Decorated in nothing but bleaks and blacks, the windowless cabin could best be described as oppressive and brooding. Had it been a teenager, it would have written depressing, angst-ridden poetry about the pointless emptiness of life and told its parents they just didn’t understand. The space was joyless, cheerless, and utterly hopeless — except for the thirteen cocker spaniel puppies frolicking on the floor.
Seeboth kicked open the hatch and greeted the jumble of dogs. “Hello babies, did you miss Daddy? Come here, Gangrene, come on.”
He pulled several bones — suspiciously human in nature — from a jar and tossed them to the puppies. While the spaniels eagerly tumbled over each other to get at the treats, Seeboth pointed his magic finger at a wide mirror on the wall. The glass fritzed to life.
Jeremy the Zombie appeared, reflected from the other side.
“We have the princess,” Seeboth said. “Is the altar prepared for the sacrifice?”
Jeremy nodded. “The altar will be ready by the full moon, my lord, just in time for the planetary conjunction.”
Seeboth’s brows furrowed, tilting sharply toward his nose like a trapdoor dropping a victim onto a bed of spikes. “Jeremy, what did I tell you about speaking?”
“Oh… um… I’m sorry my lord,” Jeremy stammered. “I mean, um, urrrr…”
“Your brain had best finish rotting if it knows what’s good for you,” Seeboth growled. “Go stand in the sun or something!”
Seeboth waved his hand again and Jeremy disappeared, replaced by a surveillance view of Princess Luscious in her cell. Even as she danced back and forth between the rat and the mold, she was nevertheless a vision of white amid the blackness of her cell. Seeboth couldn’t look away.
“What makes her so special to you?” Demog asked. He had stopped outside the hatch, unwilling to approach the concentrated cuteness of the puppies.
“Demog, the Spell of Unmaking is very specific,” Seeboth said distractedly, his eyes still fixed on the image of Princess Luscious. “The magic won’t work unless I fall in love with a princess. Now typically, love is not easy for a Shadow Wizard to find, but… she wants me. I’ve searched far and wide, from one age to another, for a special someone like her, and… and… she’s so beautiful… don’t you think?”
“Yes. Truly a special find, my lord.” Demog spat out the foul-tasting words then said pointedly, “Of course, you’ll have to sacrifice her at the full moon, but with her death…” His voice trailed off.
Seeboth finally turned from the mirror with a wicked glint in his eye, more wicked than any of the previous wicked glints he had displayed so far that night. “With her death, I shall finally become a god.”
“We make haste to Treasury Island, then?” Demog asked.
“No, the pirates can wait.”
“But, my lord—”
“There’s wooing to be done, Demog! We’ll be taking the scenic route tonight.”
> “Yes, my lord.” Demog sighed then departed to carry out the dark wizard’s somewhat-less-than-dark command.
With a triumphant “Whoop!” Seeboth scooped up one of his puppies and cuddled it against his evil face. “Love is grand, isn’t it, Canker?”
The puppy ignored him completely; he was far too busy gnawing on something that might have been a finger bone.
11
THE SPELL OF UNMAKING
Thousands of years ago, the mad monk Clavicus Convex created a spell that not even he was mad enough to cast. If he had, I would not be here telling you this story right now, and you would not be there reading it. Rather, both you and I — along with everything else — would be little more than whiffs of something called quantum particles, which, if you are unschooled in the ways of magic, you may simply think of as the Eraser Shavings of the Universe.
Convex attempted to destroy all of his research, but not before a group of slightly-less-mad monks within his monastery realized the incredible tithe-generating potential of their brother’s discovery. These monks worshiped at the Chapel of Marketing where they tended the Altar of Prawfut, the Prophet of Profit. Because their salvation was contingent upon hitting divinely ordained revenue targets, they were heedless of the spell’s inherent dangers, seeing only its potential profitability.
Before Convex could stop them, these marketing monks hand-copied hundreds of illuminated promotional brochures and leaked them to the world. They read as follows:
Art thou tired of being the sorcerous equivalent of a 98-pound weakling?
Then the Spell of Unmaking is for you!
Become the life force of every party!
Be worshiped, literally, by millions around the world!
Out with the old gods, in with the YOU!
Happily Ever Awkward Page 5
