Bacca and the Riddle of the Diamond Dragon

by Jerome ASF

  “I like fish when it’s cold,” Bacca said. “Uncooked actually. Maybe we have something in common.”

  The boy nodded in agreement.

  “Did you find the Wizard?” the boy asked.

  “Yes,” Bacca said. “He told me to find a witch and get rid of her. And I have to make a map of my travels to find her. But nobody I’ve talked to knows anything about a witch.”

  “My grandfather used to talk about a witch, but that was many years ago,” said the boy. “I don’t remember any details. Sorry. I wish I could tell you more.”

  “That’s okay,” said Bacca. “It’s more than anybody else has been able to tell me.”

  “Oh, well good then,” said the boy happily.

  “I thought this mapmaking was going to be a stupid waste of my time,” Bacca added. “But it’s actually been really helpful in keeping me from getting lost. I’m glad the Wizard suggested it. Or, required it, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” the boy said, nodding. “That’s the thing about the Wizard. When he gives you a task, there’s usually a good reason behind it.”

  Bacca said farewell to the boy with the yellow hair, and spent a few more minutes questioning other villagers. A few thought they had “maybe” heard about a witch in the maze a long time ago, but nobody knew where she lived now. Bacca tried not to get discouraged. When he decided there was nothing else to be learned from the villagers, he set off again into the twists and turns of the maze.

  It was easy to lose track of time. Bacca was soon sure that he had walked for hours and hours, or maybe even for days and days. He walked and walked and walked. Then he walked some more. His drawings of the maze became long and detailed. He was hungry. There were no raw fish to be seen. There were also no witches.

  The one development that felt like progress was finding the outer wall of the maze. Bacca was reasonably sure he’d been able to find the edge. This allowed him to understand the outermost borders of the maze, and how much he had left to explore.

  After what seemed like a truly epic period of exploration, Bacca turned down a corridor that felt somehow familiar. A few paces later, Bacca realized why.

  “Oh no,” he said to himself. “I’m back to the Wizard’s workshop. And I didn’t find the witch at all!”

  Bacca went through a range of emotions. At least one of them was the emotion that makes you want to grab a little loudmouthed bat by the toe and start squeezing until it told you where to find an emerald hare. Bacca tried to fight this emotion—at least for the moment—as he barged back into the workshop.

  The Wizard was fixing a minecart with a broken wheel. He held a tiny hammer in his wing and an itty-bitty chisel in the other. He put both down when he saw Bacca.

  “You didn’t find the witch,” the Wizard said, flying over.

  It was a statement, not a question.

  “No,” Bacca said, feeling annoyed. “I sure didn’t.”

  “On the upside,” said the little bat. “You found the emerald hare.”

  “No I didn’t,” Bacca said. “What’re you talking about?”

  The bat smiled, baring a set of tiny, sharp teeth. Bacca had a feeling as though someone were playing a practical joke on him. A joke he didn’t get. Bacca looked around, ready for somebody to start laughing at him.

  “Take out the map you drew and show it to me,” the Wizard said.

  “But it’s pages and pages,” replied Bacca.

  “Then lay out the pages together on the ground to form one big map,” the Wizard said.

  “Okaaaay,” said Bacca. He was skeptical, but did as he was told.

  Bacca carefully took the pages on which he’d drawn the maze’s winding corridors and arranged them together on the floor of the workshop. As he did so, the tiny bat hovered near his shoulder, looking on and smiling approvingly. When Bacca finished, he looked up at the bat.

  “There you go,” Bacca said. “That’s everything.”

  “Now take a few steps back from it,” said the Wizard.

  Bacca thought this was silly, but obliged.

  “Now take a look at the entire thing—all of it together,” said the bat. “What do you see?”

  It slowly dawned on Bacca. The maze had a body, four little jutting side-tunnels like legs, a large portion above the body like a head . . . and two long extensions that suddenly looked a whole lot like long floppy ears.

  “The maze looks like a rabbit!” Bacca cried.

  “And what color is the floor of the maze?” the Wizard asked.

  Bacca recalled that while the walls were blocks of red brick, the ground underfoot was always fresh grass. Fresh green grass.

  “Oh my goodness,” Bacca said. “The emerald hare is the maze.”

  “Exactly,” the Wizard said. It stopped to perch on Bacca’s shoulder the way a parrot might sit on a pirate it was especially familiar with.

  “But . . .” Bacca stammered. “What am I supposed to do now? Have I solved the riddle? This is still confusing.”

  “Take a look again,” the Wizard said. “Is the rabbit a perfect rabbit?”

  “Well, my map-drawing penmanship isn’t perfect,” Bacca began. “But it does appear that there’s a chunk missing from one of the rabbit’s ears. It looks like a chocolate bunny that somebody took a bite out of.”

  “Right,” said the Wizard. “So what does that tell you?”

  “Maybe I missed something?” Bacca wondered.

  The Wizard nodded.

  “That’s where the witch lives,” the tiny bat said. “The entrance to her lair is secret, but you can find it if you know it’s there. Once you go inside, you’ll have walked the entire length of the emerald hare. I think that then, and only then, you’ll have solved the riddle.”

  “Wow,” Bacca said. “Thanks.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Wizard could have somehow made all of this a whole lot easier. But he was too excited to dwell on it. He was making progress. Now it was time to solve the riddle!

  “You’re welcome,” said the Wizard, taking off back into the air.

  Bacca’s hands were far too large for him to properly shake hands with the tiny bat, but he extended a hairy finger and the bat was able to shake it.

  “You were certainly secretive about the maze,” Bacca said. “Before I go, is there anything you’re not telling me about the witch?”

  The bat rubbed its chin.

  “Probably not,” it eventually determined.

  “‘Probably not’?” Bacca said.

  “Yes,” the bat said. “That’s right.”

  Then the Wizard gave him a little wink.

  Bacca gathered up his map and headed off to find the lair of the witch.

  Chapter Eight

  Bacca ran his hands across the brick walls, looking for anything that might be the opening to a secret passage to where a witch lived. According to his map, he was standing right on the “ear” of the rabbit where the witch should be. There had to be a way to access the missing area. Bacca felt all along the wall, then knocked on it gently with one of his pickaxes. Bacca knew it would be very possible to break the wall down or simply tunnel under it, but something about that felt dangerous. Bacca had dealt with witches a few times before; there were usually consequences for just barging in.

  Then Bacca’s foot caught on something in the floor of the passageway. Bacca took a knee and began to examine the spot more closely. He used his hands to clear away the grass and soil. He realized he had found a trap door.

  “Now we’re talking!” Bacca said.

  He carefully opened the door and peered inside. It was dark, but Bacca lit a torch and hopped in. He found himself in another hallway, much smaller than the halls of the maze. Immediately the smell hit him. Witches.

  Witches themselves did not have a smell, of course. Or, if they did, it was entirely lost underneath the smell of the twenty or so different kinds of fragrant potions that they always seemed to be cooking at any given time. It was an odd combination of fire, boiling water, a
nd lots and lots of ingredients. Once you smelled it, you never forgot it. If you got too close, the stench would stick to your clothes for days. (Bacca’s suit was still moist from diving into the pool. Now it was going to smell like witch on top of that. “Great,” he muttered sarcastically. “My dry cleaning bill is going to be through the roof this month!”)

  Bacca walked down the corridor in the direction of the mixture of strange smells. Soon he also heard bubbling sounds—a sure sign that he was getting closer to a witch. Then he saw a set of stairs and a hatch in the ceiling. He knew what he had to do.

  The best way to take on a witch was to rush in quickly and give it several swift whacks. Otherwise, they could hit you with potions and you might be in trouble. With this in mind, Bacca took Betty out of his inventory and made a few practice chops against the wall. Then he steadied his nerves and threw open the trap door above.

  Jumping through, Bacca saw that he was indeed inside a witch’s laboratory. All manner of large black cauldrons burbled in the cavernous room around him. Glass tubes connected by copper piping synthesized different heated liquids. There were tables with large stacks of exotic ingredients piled high atop them. Bacca saw all of this in a flash. Then, suddenly, there was a splashing sound. Bacca realized he was now suffering one of the disadvantages of leaping before he looked.

  Bacca had landed right in the middle of a cauldron. The strange smell of its contents bubbled up over him. It was really unpleasant.

  “Yuck,” Bacca said, crawling out of the cauldron and knocking over a brewing stand beside it. “So much for an inconspicuous entrance.”

  No sooner were these words out of Bacca’s mouth than they were proved true.

  From the back of the lair, a dark and mysterious figure emerged. It was a witch, and a large one at that! She towered over Bacca and stared down at him angrily. She had a long nose with a bright red wart on it, and a tall hat with a brass buckle that was turning green. She had hairy eyebrows and thin lips. She looked at Bacca like he was a bug she wanted to squash.

  “Who are you?” she cackled. “I suppose you want to get rid of me, eh?”

  “If getting rid of you will solve the riddle, then that’s what I’m here to do,” Bacca said. He used his glistening diamond axe to pick his fangs. He hoped it looked intimidating, but then again, he was also wet and smelly from having just crawled out of her cauldron . . .

  The witch smiled as though this was cute.

  “Oh, I’ve heard about you,” the witch said. “Word travels fast down here. Bacca the famous crafter. Bacca with his legions of fans. Bacca this and Bacca that. Well I’ve got news for you! Now you’re in my lair, and I’m the one in charge. Get it?”

  Bacca sighed. Why did bullies always have “news for you”?

  “Listen, we can still do this peacefully,” Bacca said. “I’m sure you’ve had a good run here. But maybe now it’s time for you to move on somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be nice to relocate, find some other witches, and settle down as a nice little horde? Or, wait, would that be a coven? You know, I can never remember the correct terminology . . .”

  “I’m not sure you fully understand your predicament,” said the witch confidently, reaching for her satchel. Witches were quick on the draw with their potions, just like old west cowboys with their guns. Plus, you never knew exactly what the potions were going to do. But it was usually something bad.

  Now that he had ruined the chance for his favorite witch-attacking technique—charging in before they had a chance to draw—Bacca prepared for his second-favorite technique: dodging a whole bunch of potions while you tried to get close enough to strike back.

  The witch’s hand hovered over her potion inventory.

  “That’s a nice axe you have there,” the witch said, taunting Bacca. “Of course to hit me with it, you’d have to see me . . .”

  Then the witch did something Bacca was not expecting. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a clear potion . . . and drank it. An instant later, she vanished into the air.

  Bacca had only a moment to react. Trying to hit an invisible witch while she threw potion after potion at you—probably while she was circle strafing—was not Bacca’s idea of a good time. He might be able to pull it off, sure, but he also might end up witch-food. In the split-second Bacca had to react, he decided on another, better approach . . .

  Potion war!

  The witch was at a disadvantage because Bacca had surprised her in her workshop. There were still tables piled high with ingredients that anyone could use to make potions. Perhaps the witch did not know that in addition to being a master crafter, Bacca was also a master at brewing potions. But if that was the case . . . she was about to find out.

  Instead of charging the invisible witch, Bacca leapt to the side where a table of ingredients and an empty cauldron were waiting. Instants later, a potion of harming materialized out of thin air across the room and careened into the spot where Bacca had been standing. The vile black liquid exploded against the stone floor with an evil hissssss.

  Yikes, Bacca thought. This witch was not messing around.

  With blazing speed, Bacca began to rummage for all the ingredients he needed for a potion of his own. He took nether wart, a golden carrot, and a fermented spider eye and mixed them together in a cauldron. Another potion of harming materialized out of thin air and sailed past him. Bacca carefully ducked out of the way. The cauldron’s effects on the ingredients were practically instant, and moments later Bacca was drinking down his own concoction.

  He held his hairy arm in front of his face, and found that he could not see it. The plan had worked. He had made his own potion of invisibility! Now it was a fair fight. At least for the moment . . .

  “Not so much fun when somebody turns the tables on you, is it?” Bacca said with a laugh.

  “Argh!” the witch cried out in frustration. “I’m still going to get you!”

  Another potion of harming materialized and flew across the room. But this time, it shattered nowhere near Bacca. The witch was firing blind.

  Bacca considered his next move. If he made his own potions of harming—which, being a master at brewing potions, he could easily do—then he and the witch would just be invisible people throwing potions at targets they could not see. It would take all day to fight that way, thought Bacca. And he was in a hurry to get the dragons back their orb. There had to be a better way, so he hatched a different plan.

  While the angry witch continued to “spray and pray” by throwing potions of harming everywhere, Bacca charged over to a different cauldron. Into this one he combined a golden carrot with a redstone and some nether wart. When it was brewed and in the bottle, he did not immediately drink it. Instead, he silently crept to the wall where a trio of torches provided the room’s sole illumination. Now and then, the witch threw another potion (and uttered an old-timey-sounding witch-curse), but the potions all missed.

  Bacca grabbed a water bottle from the nearest pile of brewing ingredients, and used the water to extinguish the torches. The room was plunged into utter darkness. He heard the witch shriek in surprise. Bacca quickly drank the new potion he had brewed. It was, of course, a potion of night vision. Once again, the room was visible to him—a strange shade of grey, but visible.

  Bacca turned his attention to the direction from where the last potion had been thrown. The surprised witch was stumbling around, probably looking for a potion of night vision of her own. Did the rest of her inventory contain only offensive potions? If so, then Bacca was definitely in luck.

  Soon Bacca saw what he was waiting for. The witch stumbled in the darkness and knocked into a table of ingredients, sending it toppling over. Bacca sprang into action. He leapt to the spot just where he knew the witch would be. He felt himself connect with the witch and sent her reeling back. Then he took Betty out of his inventory and prepared to strike.

  “Okay, you win!” cried the witch.

  At that very moment, her potion wore off and she became visible to Ba
cca again.

  “If you let me go, then I’ll leave and never come back,” the witch said. “I’ll knock down the wall I put up to separate my lair from the rest of the maze. And I’ll even let the Wizard out from under my curse.”

  Bacca paused.

  “Wait . . . there’s a curse on the Wizard?” Bacca asked.

  “Sure there is,” the witch said.

  “What kind of curse?” Bacca asked.

  “For starters, he wasn’t always a bat,” the witch said. “He used to be a villager. On top of that, he used to be able to come and go as he pleased. But I placed an enchantment on him so he can never leave this maze.”

  “That was certainly lousy of you,” Bacca said disapprovingly. “What made you do something so mean?”

  “He was . . .” the witch had difficulty speaking, as though there was something she could not bear to admit.

  “Out with it!” Bacca ordered.

  “Fine,” said the witch. “He was better at crafting than me! And better at brewing potions, if you can believe it. Me, a witch! I’m supposed to be the best. I got so jealous! He was always showing me up whenever there was some kind of crafting competition. I got tired of coming in second place. So when I learned how to put curses on people, he was my first and only target.”

  “Well, now we are going to set some things right,” Bacca said sternly. “And you are going to help. If you obey me, I just might let you go.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said the witch.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” said Bacca. “First things first. I want you to hand over that satchel of potions you’re carrying.”

  The witch frowned sadly but hoisted her bag of potions into the air. Bacca took it from her. Then he took each of the potions and dumped them down a drain.

  “They were my finest creations,” wept the witch.

  “And you used them to be a jerk,” Bacca said. “Now, get back on your feet. You can swing a pickaxe, can’t you? Well, get out a pickaxe and help me connect your secret lair back with the rest of the maze.”

  Bacca relit the torches just as his own potions wore off. The witch looked grumpy, but she was true to her word. Working together, they hacked away at the blocks that formed the walls to the witch’s home. Sparks flew as their pickaxes chiseled away. Great mounds of dust and debris began to gather at their feet.