by Dante King
“No. Once you get into the alleyway, you will find that it is a dead-end. Ensure you have a slip of parchment with the item you wish to procure written on it. There will be four stacks of empty beer barrels at the end of the alleyway. Feed the rolled-up bit of parchment into the bung hole of the cask on the far left.”
Damien cracked up at the mention of a bung hole. Idman gave my frat brother a weary stare.
“Sorry,” Damien choked. “Too much Beavis and Butthead as a kid.”
Idman pulled a slip of parchment and a piece of charcoal from his pocket. He scribbled a couple of words on it and then, with a lovely little bit of casual magic, he sent it fluttering over to land in my outstretched palm. I opened it and saw that ‘Pixie Dust’ was written on it.
“The bouncers on the other side of the barrier will assess your request and, all being well, the barrier will then open,” Idman finished as I pocketed the scrap of parchment.
I nodded. “That’s it? There aren’t going to be any surprises that I need to brace myself for? It’s been quite a long day and I wouldn’t mind getting back here in time to enjoy a bit of dessert and maybe a nightcap with the gang.”
Idman shook his head.
“Any idea where Janet might have gone to procure this stuff?” I asked.
Idman pursed his lips. “You’ll see once you’re inside Powder Lane that any prediction I could make as to the location of my daughter would be quite futile.”
“You’re really earning your Father’s Day card this year, Mr. Thunderstone,” Alura said stonily.
“I won’t be long,” I said, pushing my chair out and starting across the lawn toward the house.
The rain was easing, thankfully, but I still conjured a hood from the ever-changing, magical cloak that Igor Chaosbane had given me as part of my War Mage sponsorship deal. I pulled it over my head and started to skirt the house, deciding on walking around rather than through. As I did, I heard soft footfalls behind me.
“I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind?” Enwyn’s voice said from my side.
I put an arm around her and gave her a brief squeeze. “Sure,” I said. “I could do with some adult supervision.”
“Always,” Enwyn said.
“And, maybe later, once we’ve found Janet, we could engage in some proper adult supervision,” I said casually.
Enwyn laughed. “So subtle,” she said, giving me a soft dig in the ribs.
“Like a brick through a window, huh?” I said.
“You wish,” Enwyn retorted. “You’ve got a ways to go yet before you’re as subtle as something smashing through a window.” She grabbed my ass and gave it a firm squeeze. “You just need a bit of molding.”
I nudged her with my shoulder. “I’ll mold you into my damned mattress if you’re not careful.”
We walked down the garden path, past Ar-undead, the former bane of our fraternity house and now resident guard-zombie. I waved at the zombie as we passed and got a long moan in reply.
“Are you still looking for a way to reverse what happened to Arun?” Enwyn asked me as I held the garden gate open for her and we stepped out onto the road.
“Yeah, I’m keeping my eyes and ears open,” I said. “He was a bit of an a-hole in life, sure, but I had a feeling that he was changing. I think if he’d spent a little time hanging out with me and the boys here, in a more relaxed, less judgmental environment, I think he might have come around. I figure if I stumble across a cure for zombielitis, he deserves a second chance.”
Chapter Three
As we walked down the hill, I gave Enwyn a summary of my discussion with my father. Overhead, the clouds were beginning to break up a little, and patches of night sky festooned with stars could be seen through the rents.
After a while, we walked along in companionable silence, each of us lost in our thoughts. While Enwyn strolled along slightly ahead of me humming softly, giving me a front row seat to enjoy the way that her leather pants clung artfully to her ass, I opened my spellbook.
It had been a little while since I had taken more than a cursory glance at the thing. Usually, the only time that I looked in this book that I carried everywhere was just after I’d finished having sex. It was at such times that any new spell that I might have inadvertently unlocked etched itself into my spellbook.
I thumbed through the thick pages until I landed on the first page of my spell arsenal. As I ran my eyes down that first page and up to the top of the next, I couldn’t help but grin. Each one of these spells evoked a different memory as I read the name. They were memories that usually came with delightful images of some naked woman or other, but also conjured recollections of the battles and situations in which I had first used them.
Storm Bolt (Storm Magic) — a ball of crackling storm energy that electrocutes and, in some instances, explodes the target.
Storm Bolt… That one took me back. Took me all the way back to the beginning of this insane adventure that I was still living. I wondered if I would ever come to look at my life in Avalonia as just that: life. Or whether I would always feel like I was hopping from one adventure to the next. Shit, that probably wasn’t the worst way that I could pass my life.
That day, the first time that I had used Storm Bolt, had also been the first time I’d lain eyes on the gorgeous Gothic secretary-type figure with which I was now walking the nighttime streets.
Enwyn had come into my uncle’s occult bookstore and given me the old ‘You’re a wizard, Harry’ treatment. Like H.P, I hadn’t been one hundred percent sold on the revelation straight away. I’d just assumed that the stunning woman with the crotch-elevating cleavage had been playing some weird practical joke on me.
Unlike Harry Potter though, when the truth had come out, I hadn’t just been able to relax and eat some cake. I had accidentally blown one of Enwyn’s fellow Academy colleagues to smithereens. Not knowing how to control my newfound magical ability, I had spread poor Bernard across the interior of my uncle’s shop like meat paste.
Paralyzing Zap (Storm Magic) — a bolt of energy that paralyzes.
Summon Lightning Skink (Storm Magic) — conjures a Lightning Skink from the pure magical realm.
I chuckled softly. I’d used the Lightning Skink spell for the first time against my good pal, Bradley Flamewalker. He’d been doing his best to pound me into a wafer-thin strip in a graveyard at the time though, so the use of that spell had been quite called for.
Flame Barrier (Fire Magic) — Produces an elemental barrier of imagined shape. Channel through your vector while imagining the shape of the barrier you wish to conjure.
Fireball (Fire Magic) — Produces a fireball of varying size. Increase size through intention and use of mana.
Blazing Bolt (Hybrid Magic) — A purely mentally composed spell (no gestures needed) fired straight from the practitioner’s vector. Spell is similar to that of the Storm Bolt–though manifests itself as a burning red sphere of crackling energy. Spell can be deployed to home-in on a target’s mana imprint even to the point of following the target around corners/over and under obstacles.
Metamorphosis: Lesser Gemstone Elemental (Gemstone Elemental Magic) — Transform into a Lesser Gemstone Elemental for a limited time (consumes mana at a rapid rate).
Unsurprisingly, this spell had been added to my spellbook after the first time that Alura and I had jumped each other’s bones. That had been one hell of an evening. I could still remember it, down to the finest detail.
Crystalize (Gemstone Elemental Magic) — Transform objects into crystal-like hardness.
Flame Flight (Fire Magic) — Using arcane flames, the caster is capable of flight for a limited time. Drains mana at a moderate rate.
Greater Flame Flight (Fire Magic) — Using arcane flames, the caster is capable of flight for himself and one other person of average human size for a limited time. Drains mana at a rapid rate.
Crystal Magma Bombs (Hybrid Magic) — Conjures a small crystal magma grenade, which explodes and sends globs of bur
ning magma everywhere.
Telekinesis (Storm Magic) — Manipulate an object at a distance. Limited to strength and dexterity of the caster.
Arcane Mine (Hybrid Magic) — Conjure an adhesive charged mine that deals lightning and earth damage.
Strangely, as I ran my finger across this spell, the memory of standing on a table in the middle of the refectory of the Eldritch Prison flashed into my mind. I recalled how Reginald Chaosbane and I had been standing atop the table, firing spells at the Frost Giants guards who were so intent on stopping us from busting Barry Chillgrave, the poltergeist and ancestor of Cecilia, out of the joint formerly run by Idman Thunderstone. An Arcane Mine had played an integral role in dismembering a Frost Giant who had attempted to sneak round the back of us.
Frost Shards (Frost Magic) — Shoot five sharpened icy projectiles from your vector.
Compulsion Anger (Infernal Magic) — A curse that increases a subject’s anger and turns it into a murderous rage.
Tundra Tempest (Hybrid Magic) — Summon a lightning storm that rains icicle spears and conceals the caster from view in a dense fog.
Summon Frostfire Golem (Hybrid Magic) — Summon a golem capable of ice and fire elemental attacks.
All in all, I had quite the selection of spells there. I doubted that anyone, on perusing my inventory, could have said that I was lacking in offensive spells. My initial thoughts were that, when it came to the War Mage Qualifiers, it might be beneficial for me to have one or two incantations that enhanced my own physical attributes. I had the Metamorphosis spell to conjure armor and increase my strength, as well as Flame Flight, which enabled me to fly.
As Enwyn and I reached the bottom of the hill and started toward the village proper, I thought that offensive spells would always be needed. And while I already had a lot of them, they were the most fun, at the end of the day.
Enwyn and I knew exactly where the Goat’s Scrote Tavern was. It was, as Idman had said, the least reputable drinking house in the whole of Nevermoor—a village in which pub culture played quite a large part. Many of the locals of Nevermoor, if they were not employed directly by the Mazirian Academy, farmed the lands surrounding the village. There were, in Avalonia as on Earth, few people who could drink and talk as much as farmers.
The night was progressing as we neared the Goat’s Scrote. We gave the front entrance a wide berth. There was always the chance that in this part of town, at this time of night, you might get roped into some ridiculous altercation or other.
Nigel had come home one night with a black eye and the story that a drunken local had picked a fight with him because he had been looking at his friend funny. Nigel had pointed out that the man who had managed to grab hold of his shirt collar and was doing the accusing was blind—not blind drunk, but actually blind—and couldn’t have seen how or where Nigel had been looking. After this, the halfling had found himself on the receiving end of the luckiest punch ever thrown.
Enwyn and I walked around the side of the pub. The coast was clear except for a woman who was lying in the street and grinning to herself, clutching a bottle and snoring. We stepped over her and wandered down the side of the lime-washed building until we came to a wide opening. It might have been the entrance to a stable yard at one point, but now there was only a single solitary figure leaning nonchalantly against one of the open gates.
A dull moan came from out of the shadows to our left. Looking over, I saw a couple of sprawled men down there. One looked to be sleeping the sleep of the recently knocked out. The other was the one making the low keening noise. Both men looked like they had been victims of a savage beating. They were sporting dark bruises, open cuts, and their clothing was torn to tatters. There were a couple of little white items nearby that looked like teeth to me. One of them certainly had a very molar-like appearance.
I glanced up at the figure leaning against the gatepost. When Idman had mentioned a sphinx in human form who acted as doorkeeper to Powder Lane, I had been expecting a dude with a head like a pumpkin, cauliflower ears, and arms like hairy hams. The sort of guy who brushed his teeth with steel wool and gargled broken glass.
What I had not been expecting was a lithe young woman with hair the color of sand, dressed in form-fitting linens and a pair of sandals. It was hard to make much of her features in the dark, but her face was dominated by a pair of very feline eyes and teeth so white that they shone even in the dim light of the shy stars.
I stared at the woman by the gateway. She didn’t actually have a tail, but I got the sense that if she had had one, it would have been swishing and flicking to and fro.
I pointed at the battered men over in the shadows.
“Your work?” I asked the sphinx.
The woman inclined her head and purred, “They did not know the answer to the riddle.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Fortunately, we do know the answer to your riddle.”
The woman slowly formed a fist with one hand. The knuckles popped audibly. ”We shall see,” she said pleasantly. “Here is the riddle.”
“We don’t actually need to hear the—” I began, but the sphinx in human form spoke smoothly over me.
“What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?” she purred.
“Wait. What?” I said. “That’s not this week’s riddle, is it?”
“It is,” the sphinx gatekeeper said serenely.
“What about the candle riddle?” I turned to Enwyn. “How did it go?”
“You measure my life in hours, and I serve you by expiring,” Enwyn said. “I’m quick when I’m thin and slow when I’m fat. The wind is my enemy.”
The gatekeeper smiled. Apart from popping her knuckles, she had not moved an inch since we had laid eyes on her.
“That,” she said, “was last week’s riddle.”
“What?” I said again. “But it’s Sunday!”
The sphinx shook her head.
“It’s Monday?” I asked, turning to look at Enwyn. The Fire Mage looked momentarily baffled.
The sphinx guardian looked up at the stars that were beginning to peek out more frequently from the breaking clouds.
“Three minutes past the midnight hour,” she said. “Give or take. That means it is Monday, and a fresh riddle.”
“Son of a…” I muttered. “Can you give it to us again, please?”
The sphinx shook her pretty head.
I turned to Enwyn. “I don’t suppose you got that the first time, did you?”
Enwyn pursed her lips for a moment. She took off her glasses and polished them. Then, replacing her spectacles, she said, “What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?” she whispered, more to herself than to me.
Unfortunately, with reading my spellbook and dwelling on all those sweet memories of past sexual conquests on the way down the hill, my brain jumped straight into one train of thought when I re-heard that opening line.
“What comes once in a minute?” I said to Enwyn. “Is this a riddle or one of those dirty limericks.”
Enwyn snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Would you get your mind out of the gutter?” she said exasperatedly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It seems to really dig frolicking about down there.”
Enwyn walked a little way away, murmuring to herself.
The sphinx, staring at the two of us with an almost insulting level of disregard, began to pick at her teeth with one long, claw-like nail.
“What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?” I muttered. “What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years? Ummm…”
And then, as is the way with all riddles when you see through their tricky exteriors into their simplistic hearts, the answer burgeoned into the forefront of my mind.
“The letter M,” I said aloud.
“What?” Enwyn said, but the sphinx was already smiling and stepping further to one side.
&nb
sp; “The letter M,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her into the courtyard beyond the gateway. Once in the word ‘minute’, twice in the word ‘moment’—”
“And never in the words ‘a thousand years’...” Enwyn said.
I laughed shortly. “If we’d chosen not to answer at all, could we have walked away?”
Enwyn shook her head. “Oh no, that’s not how sphinxes' minds work. As soon as you engage them in conversation and they divulge their riddle to you, it’s either answer or suffer the consequences.”
“So our options were to get it right, or get our heads kicked in?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hm,” I said as we walked quickly to the end of the courtyard, toward the stacked beer barrels, “not great options, but better than no options, I guess.”
There were a couple of grubby lanterns hanging on either side of the stack of beer barrels. These acted as markers more than actually emitting any light worth mentioning.
From out of my pocket, I pulled the little scroll of parchment, with ‘PIXIE DUST’ printed on it in Idman’s neat, officious script and went to slip it into the bung hole of the last barrel on the left.
Just before I could do this, the wall of barrels rippled and contorted. I screwed my eyes shut and opened them again.
“Did you see that?” Enwyn asked me.
“I think so,” I replied.
I reached out a hand to touch the scarred and splintered exterior of the barrel nearest to me. It felt as solid and real as anything else I had ever touched.
Without a moment’s warning, the surface of the whole stack warped and contorted, as if the barrels were suddenly made from rubber or goo. In the next instant, two figures rocketed out the center of the barrel stack, tearing through solid oak that had suddenly become as pliable as the surface of a soap bubble. They were ejected onto the hard cobbles of the courtyard, landing with a sound of flesh scraping against stone that set my teeth on edge.
