by Jim Conder
Deep within the sea srrounding oykot, an explosion awakened something. Something large and reptilian. It rumbled benath the sea.
The crew of a fishing boat saw it first, though not for long.
A long day of travel and food had worked their magic on Maggie, she’d passed out on the sleeping mats as soon as they’d reached the inn. Susan, however decided to have a bath. Naturally the foriegners couldn’t even get that right. Here, for some reason, they expected you to wash first and then get in the bath.
Still the bath felt great when she got in. Normal baths tended to cool off once you’d sat in them a while, but not these. There were no active volcanoes in Oykot, not currently at the least, but it still had a number of hot springs. Enterprising inn owners, converted these into baths, and even Susan had to admit she’d never felt anything like it.
She sat back closed her eyes and relaxed. Presently she heard one of the doors being opened and footsteps coming towards. she opened her eyes.
“MR. TAFT!”
“What?”
“This is a ladies bath!”
“Actually this one is unisex,”
“Right uni means one. One sex at a time,’
“Will you relax? I mean it’s not like I haven’t already seen everything,”
“Well I haven’t!”
“Well now you have, we’re even.”
“I don’t want to be even,”
“Then shut your eyes,”
“I will… . in a minute,”
“Keep staring like that and it’ll stand to attention,” He slid into the water beside her. “Y’know Susan sometimes I get the impression you don’t care much for me.”
“I despise you to the core of my being,”
“Well it’s nice to know you have deep feelingss for me,” he said, moving closer to her.
“I have nightmares about you,”
“Yeah, I sort of though I was the man of your dreams,” He put his arm around her, and gave a slight tickle to her neck.
“You’re like a fungus!”
“So I’m growing on you then?” He leaned his face in closer to hers, their mouths separated by only the briefest of distances. There was a long pause
“Yes, maybe a little.”
Her eys closed as he moved in to kiss her. Their lips met slowly„ , and she pushed him back. Then quickly got out of the bath.
“You’re a dangerous man Mr. Taft,” she said, moving towards the dressing room.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” she said, “I think I could do with a walk.”
“Don’t get lost,”
“Witches never get lost!” She turned and left. He watched for few minutes, grinning.
Damien had just drifted off to sleep, when the screaming started. He awoke to the sounds of panicked crowds racing down the street. He threw on a robe and looked out the door to his room.
“What’s happening Mr. Taft?” asked Maggie, looking out the door to the room she shared with Susan.
“Monster attack,” he replied, “Happens quite frequently around here.”
“What kind of monster?”
“There’s not really a good word for it our language, but the name translates as the gorilla-whale,”he said, then realized somthing,
“Where’s Su…where’s Mistress Crone?”
“I dunno,”said Maggie looking panicked.”Do you think she’s out there with that?
“I hope not,”Damien answered,”it’s an endangered species already.”
Susan was not lost, however the rest of the world was in the wrong place. She’d dressed quickly after her encounter with Mr. Taft, and headed out into the night air to clear her head. Unfortunately after an hour of wandering, she discovered that all the streets had changed and she didn’t know where anything was.
She tried to ask directions bur everyone spoke that heathen lingo, and then it seemed that everyone had begun screaming and running down the streets. She didn’t understand the language, but it sounded as if they were telling somoeone named Jirah to go.
“Excuse me,” she said to one panicked passerby, “but i was wondering . .”
She found it frustrating the way they kept running at her screaming in blind hysteria. Then she noticed the way the ground shook. Damien said that Oykot tended to have earthquakes, but she’d assumed it happened all at once. This seemed to be a series of small earthquakes, repeating with a steady regularity, each one larger than the last.
Footsteps, Susan realized, giant footsteps. Something, green and scaly, stomped the ground in front of her, knock ing her off balance. Her hat flew off,.Susan stood up to retreive it, when the other foot came down and crushed it, along with an all night noodle shop.
Then she heard the roar. Louder than anything she’d ever heard before, it sounded as though someone had tortured a musical instrument. She looked to see what made it. Then she looked up some more.
Vlad Draco looked out from the dark tower that stood in the middle of Lander. The town had changed in the past few days, what with every one turning to stone and all, but you couldn’t make a large omelet with breaking a few thousand eggs his father had always taught him. He looked down at the ancient tome beside him, and then he looked at the medallion he wore and he smiled.
Ahh all the schemes and plans that made life worth living.
Schemes always reminded him af Damien. He didn’t know what Damien had planned, which made Vlad glad. Nice to see he’d implanted a bit of deviousness in the boy. Still Vlad knew he couldn’t let Damien’s nefarious scheme conflict with his own. Of course if he brought the boy back into the fold, perhaps Damien’s scheme could be folded in with his own. Nobody had ever called Vlad Draco inflexible.
Well nobody that lived.
It would be nice to get Damien back in the fold after all these years. The House of Draco had over thirty generations of mad, power seeking wizards. They killed many a barbarian hero, sacrificed to many a demon god in their quest for power. The blood of millions had been shed because of the House of Draco, countless innocent souls consigned to hell because of a mad wizards dream to rule the world. Vlad felt a lump in his throat as he reflected upon this proud heritage.
Damien had to come back, the family had to be whole again.
Damien had run out of the room, to go seek Mistress Crone, and everyone else had run off, so now Maggie sat in the dark inn by herself. She sat quietly in the room listening to the sounds of chaos outside the wooden walls. Then everything grew quiet.
The soft soled boots entering the inn made no sound at all, luckily for Maggie otherwise she might not have heard them. A half second of precognition caused her to cover her mouth as a smoke bomb landed in the room. Quickly she grabbed it and tossed it back out.
Three men like large black cats entered the room , each carrying a long curved sword. They wore all black clothing with hoods and black masks covering their lower faces. One moved sideways, like a crab over to the side of the room. Another to the other side of the room. Maggie knew her exit had been cut off, so she deperately tried to think of a spell.
“Hippocrytiicus Emmrodics!”she called out the first spell that came to mind, the groaned as she realized which one it was.
The ninja on her left paused suddenlywith a puzzled expression, then a pleased one on his exposed eyes.
“Hey!”he said, “Hey hey!”
“Shhhhh,” went the middle ninja in an annoyed tone.
“Barney, Joe you won’t believe this!’ said the ninja on the left.
“Oh great Charlie great “said Barney very annoyed at this poin, “Silent warriors remember? Silent means no talking!”
“Yeah but my ‘roids are all gone,” Charley exclaimed.
“What”
“My ‘roids, y’know my hemmeroids” said Charley, doing a happy little dance, “Man! My butt hasn’t felt this great in weeks!”
“Well thanks for sharing that with us Charley,” said Barney, “Now if we can get on with the job at hand.�
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“What?”
“The girl Charley!”
“Oh,”said Charley looking a bit crestfallen “Doesn’t seem right, not now anyway.”
“Charley!”
“Well, I mean she cures my ‘roids, and now I’m supposed to kidnap her?” Charley shook his head, “Nope can’t do it.” “Charley, Draco-san paid Jones-san a large sum of money for this,” Barney explained, as patiently as he was able.
“Yeah but he’s just a foriegner,”
“She’s a foriegner,
“Yeah but she fixed my hinder,”
“Charlie…”
“Er, Barney,” Joe said, speaking up at last, “I‘ve been hearing about Charley’s butt for three weeks now, and I’d gotten a bit tired of listening to it.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So getting him shut up about it has got to be worth something, “
Barney looked from Charley to joe, then at Maggie. He gave a resigned sigh.
“All right then, what do we tell the boss?”
“We’ll just say she cast a spell and then we couldn’t do the job,”said Joe.
“Which is technicaly true,” Charlie added.
“OK, OK,” said Barney, and thus the three ninjas agreed to practice the long standing, and honorable tradition held by low level employees everywhere. Namely, it’s good to tell the truth, but that doesn’t mean you have to be honest. Barney gave a long slow look at the other three people in the room as he shook his head sadly. Then he looked back at Maggie as a thought struck him.
“Say,” he said “Do you know much about boils? Cause I’ve got a really bad one on my back.”
Why they called it the gorilla-whale no Oykotian could quite explain. It looked like neither gorilla, nor whale, but instead like some sort of giant prehistoric lizard. It had come up from the depths, and stood twenty stories high, a set of plates ran down it’s back. They began to glow and a few minutes later a blue flame burst forth from it’s mouth.
It existed purely for destruction, it took no more notice of the screaming people up than a typhoon or tornado would. But it felt something sagainst it’s foot. A sort of prodding, like a very persistent gnat trying to get the attention of an elephant. It looked down to see Susan poking it in the foot.
““Excuse me, Excuse me,” she said, then noticed it had looked down upon her. “You’ve stepped on my hat.”
The gorilla -whale lifted one foot, then brought it down upn her. Heavily.
It turned to continue it’s reign of terror. A quick roar and a jet of flame and then… something poked it in the foot again. It looked down to see Susan standing beside it and looking up.
“Y’know what?”she asked,”that makes me very angry.
Damien ran along the streets of Oykot, towards the screaming. He knew that’s where where Susan would be, and possibly even the monster. But the screaming began to die out, and as he rounded a corner he saw a huge crowd had gatherd and were fighting to get a look at something.
He shoulderd his way to the center of the crowd. The center he found to be rather wide as no one wanted to be too close to Susan, who stood in the center of it. After a moment or two of looking Damien found the gorilla-whale.
All two inches of it.
It hopped around angrily, breathing tiny jets of flames. Susan ignored it as she brushed dirt off her crushed hat. She looked over as Damien walked up to her.
“Oh, Mr.Taft,” Susan said,”I’m glad you’re here. They’ve moved the inn and I can’t seem to find it.”
Damien looked at her, then the very tiny giant beast, then back again.
“And you say I’m dangerous?”
Maggie snuggled up on her sleeping mat as she settled back to sleep. What nice men, she thought, just had a few medical problems. She hadn’t really understood their language, but when a man shows you a large, really gross boil on his back, you can guess what he wants. She’d given him a poultice for it, as well as a jar of ointment to Charley in case of return flare-ups, and some mint oil to Joe, because frankly his breath could’ve killed an ox. In return they’d given her a sword, some very pretty shiny metal stars, and two sticks connected by a leangth of chain.
It had been a good vacation so far, she thought.
Every hear in the village of Lunkre they celebrated the festival of the Seven Hogs. Stalls lined the streets sold pork sausages, pork tenderloin, pork barbecue, pork chops, and lots of beer.
This year a group of dark-skinned grass skirt wearing natives stopped off for a visit.They did not find what they were looking for here. But they all agreed the beer and sausages were good.
As they flew away from Oykot, Damien paused a moment and flew down to the shore. A small ring of grass lay burned to a crisp. Damien knelt down to inspect it.
“A magic circle?” Susan asked. He nodded, a grim look on his face
“What’s that?” Maggie asked.
“You can use them to transport yourself between two places very quickly,” Susan said.
“Instaneously,” Damen corrected. “Faster than a broom , though not as much fun.”
“They use a lot a magic,” Susan said,”and they poke holes in the fabric of reality.”
“Dark Wizards often use them,” Damien said.
“Yeah well the last Dark Wizard was Vlad Draco, and he’s been dead close to fifteen years,”Susan said. “I know he had a son, Danny, Donald, David, something like that, but they say he died alongside his father. Lucky for him.”
“Why do you say that?” Maggie asked.
“Dark wizards are blot on the profession, and I know exactly what I’d do if I were to meet him.”
“What Mistress crone?” Maggie asked. She immediately wishe she hadn’t because Susan told her. In very very graphic detail.
Damien grew pale, and Maggie actually threw up. Vlad Draco, who’d been intently watching all of this from his magic mirror, grew queasy and had to go lie down.
“That’s a use for the trombone I bet the band never thought of,” Damien said weakly. “Just for curiosity sake, what if the guy had reformed?”
“Hah! You can’t change the spots on tiger,” Susan said.
“Er, I think you mean leopard.”
“Huh?”
“Leopard. Leopards have spots, tigers have stripes.” Damien explained.
“Well, duh, that’s why you can’t change the spots on one.”
Vlad Draco drummed his fingers angrily as he thought. Difficult to believe, but the youngest one had somehow overpowered three ninjas. Obviously more to her than met the eye. Damien had been clever in his choice of allies. Shinya-Jones had refunded the bag of gold, minus the twenty percent enchanted employees charge.
He looked out of a tower window at Lander, now overgrown with strange weed. The sun hadn’t shown here in days. The strange green glow from the pit outside gave an eery light to the city. Vlad fingered his pendant, the jewel in the middle had the same sickly green glow.
Below him swarmed flocks of what at first appeared to be strange birds. Closer inspection revealed a rather simian quality to them. The monkeys carried crossbows as they soared on batlike wings. Vlad sniffed and made a face as he turned back in to his study.
Flying monkeys made great evil servants, being almost a full step up the evolutioonary ladder from Grog and Glod. However they didn’t have much of a sense of personal hygene.
Magic no longer worked in Lander, except his of course. The pit drew all magic of the area into itself, and only the one holding the medallion could access it. Vlad felt his power grow stronger each day, and knew that soon he’d have enough. Even Damien’s little scheme couldn’t interfere, whatever it was.
He frowned, of course Damien probably had feelings of resentment. After all, Vlad had left Damien to die after that last little incident. Vlad gave a small smile as he pictured it in his mind, Damien lying wounded, lashing out with anger and swearing that someday he would rule the world seek bloody vengance upon his father. Vlad felt a lump in his
throat at the thought of family traditions being kept up, and remembered the day he sworn to kill his own father.
Of course that made it all the more important to bring Damien back into the fold, where Vlad could keep an eye on him. Perhaps it would be better to go after Damien directly, rather than his associates. Not with brute force this time, but rather something that never failed.
“Maleventia!” He called into his magic mirror. His own image faded, replaced by a facemore than few men had killed for. A face that had ruined many a man’s good name, his marriage, and usually his life. She turned her cold, calculating and ultimately seductive smile to face Vlad.
“Maleventia,” Vlad said,”Do you remember my son Damien?”
Chapter 7
Maleventia
Susan, Maggie and Damien had stopped along the way at a small town sitting alongside a large lake. An old deserted castle sat upon the shores of the lake, and after dinner, Susan had wanderd over to it. Outside she heard Damien telling Maggie of the lake monster, and encouraging her to try and summon it. She sat on a window ledge and watched the setting sun turn the water a beuatiful red orange. She heard the sound of someone walking up behind her.
Damien sat down on the ledge beside her. He held a single red rose in his hand, which he sniffed, then profferd to her. She raised an eyebrow at him, then took it. He smiled at her, not his usual impertinent grin but an actual smile, as warm as a mid-spring day. She struggled, but gave in and returned it.
“I have to admit Mr. Taft, this trip has turned out to be,” she paused, “somewhat entertaining.”
“’Somewhat entertaining’, why Mistress crone I’m flattered,” he said,”and here I thought you didn’t care for me. Next thing I know, you’ll be proposing.”
She gave him half hearted kick, and he grabbed her ankle and placed her foot on his lap. He removed her sandal, and gave the sole of her foot a quick tickle.
“Stop that,” she said, after a slight giggle.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have adorable litle toes, Mistress Crone?”
“This is where I say ‘no’ and you say ‘well there’s a reason for that’, right?”
“No, no,” he said,” You do have cute little toes. I have to say I have a weakness for women with cute little toes”
