by Dante King
It’s not your imagination, came the unmistakable female voice that I had last heard in the Gemstone King’s cavern.
Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, the door of the dungeon slammed shut with a deafening boom, and a portal opened in the air above us. There was a rushing sound, a noise like the mother of all gales roaring through the huge room, though nothing disturbed the air. Then, with as little warning as the portal opening, a monster dropped out of the magical opening and thudded to the floor of the dungeon.
“Oh, that’s what my books meant when they referred to poltergeists as keepers and guardians,” Nigel said. “They really do help in blocking things on the other side from coming through the magical veil and—”
“Ripping your fucking head off?” I supplied.
The monster was getting to its four feet now. It was about as big as a medium-sized elephant or a small car. Whatever you compared it to, it was plenty big enough. It was a beast with the body of a lion, a long tail tipped with a collection of spines that just promised a painful death, dragon-like wings, and a head like a twisted caricature of a man’s.
“I’ve seen some pretty fucked up things since entering this world,” I said, “but I’d say this ugly bastard is pretty much in the gold medal position as far as hideous creatures go.”
“It’s a manticore,” Damien whispered.
“It doesn’t look like it's a particularly friendly little chap,” I said.
The manticore had gotten to its feet now. The awful, twisted humanoid head turned in our direction. The creature screamed at us and the great leathery wings opened wide.
“It looks like some sort of fucked up bat on bath salts,” Damien said.
The creature roared again, spraying spittle everywhere and leaped into the air.
“I was almost looking forward to not having something try to kill me today,” I said. “Almost.”
There came a surreptitious rattling sound from behind me and then Nigel said, “Um, the door would seem to be locked”
“Of course the door is locked,” I said, not taking my eyes from the lethal and angry-looking monster. “It’d be too much to ask to be able to step back out into the corridor for a bit of a teamtalk, wouldn’t it?”
With a fluid whipping motion, the manticore lashed its tail toward us and a collection of the evil-looking spines were sent hissing in our direction. The four others were stuck to the spot—whether out of straight shock or disbelief at seeing something as weird as a manticore in the basement of our sanctuary, I couldn’t tell. Whatever the reason, not one of them moved to defend themselves from the rush of oncoming death.
With the speed of thought, my vector appeared in my hand. I summoned a Flame Barrier that sent a protective sheet of fire arcing over us like a hellish, flaming rainbow. The manticore’s spines cracked into the barrier, burst into flame and fell to the floor as ash.
“You ladies can thank me later,” I yelled. “Now how about we try and kill this fucker before Rick here starts getting peckish again?”
At this subtle bit of instigating, the manticore’s next ranged attack found no one standing around with their thumbs up their asses. Nigel levitated straight forward like a cork out of a bottle, the spines ripping over his head. I rolled left, Damien rolled right and Rick simply put up one thick arm and deflected the few spines that found their mark by the expedient method of turning his skin to stone.
Neat bit of magic, I thought as I watched the big man lumber over to a wooden man-shaped target, pick it up and launch it at the hovering manticore. The manticore screeched, batted at the wooden missile with its deadly tail and reduced it to kindling.
Not wanting to give it a chance to perforate one of my friends, I fired off a couple of Storm Bolts in quick succession and made a dash across the room, reasoning that a moving target would hopefully confuse the thing. My first crackling ball of lightning went wide and punched into the ceiling. The second caught the manticore on one of its front paws and instantly blackened it. The manticore roared in agony and made an instinctive dive toward me, no doubt looking to crush me under its weight and tear me into inconveniently small strips.
As I saw the unwanted love-child of Smaug and Mufasa heading toward me, I unleashed a Lightning Skink in the hopes that it might distract my foe. It worked a treat. My reptilian minion sent a couple of streaks of lightning at the descending manticore, and the monster altered course with a shriek of fury. The Lightning Skink—a Great Dane-sized magical creature itself—reared up on its hind legs and bared its glassy fangs in defiance of the bigger monster.
“Go on, boy,” I urged it from under my breath.
The manticore tucked its wings into its body and dropped like a swooping falcon onto the Lightning Skink. It hit the smaller creature like a grand piano dropping out of an apartment window onto a grandma. In a shower of sparks the Lightning Skink was vanquished.
The manticore looked up from where it had landed and stared me dead in the eye. Then it opened its oversized human mouth to reveal row upon row of triangular teeth like those of a great white shark.
“Ah, crap,” I said.
At that moment, a Fireball smacked into the side of the manticore’s head and sent it off balance.
“Nice timing, man!” I yelled at Damien.
Damien didn’t reply, as he was too busy not getting smeared across the floor by the manticore’s whipping tail. He dodged the first blow and then somersaulted backward as the next scything cut of the tail went low, almost lopping him off at the knees and making him a candidate for the Special Olympics. I whooped, as he evaded yet another blow, but the cry died on my lips when the manticore suddenly batted its wings with such force that it blew my lithe fraternity brother over. I let loose a Blazing Bolt, but in my haste the shot went wide, leaving a crater in the floor of the dungeon about three feet to the left of the manticore.
“Get the hell out of there!” I yelled.
The manticore reared back on its back legs, preparing to bring its uninjured front paw down on Damien with the force of a falling tree.
There was a blur of motion to my right. A speeding ball of purplish fur crashed into Damien and tackled him out of harm’s way, just as the manticore came down with death in its eyes.
“What the—” I said, and then saw who Damien’s saviour was.
It was the saber-tooth pup, though she was a pup no longer. Five feet high at the shoulder, the cute little kitten had transformed back into the ball of sinew, muscle, and teeth that she had been when the shaman had rode her into battle. She roared defiantly at the manticore, bounded inside its reach, and sank her enormous fangs into the monster’s tail.
The manticore bellowed in pain, its mockery of a human face creased in agony. It tried to shake the saber-tooth off but, at that precise moment, Rick hit it with one of his earth rippling attacks and knocked it off balance. The manticore turned its attention on him and struck out with a paw. It’s blow only half connected with Rick, as it was off balance, but it still sent the big mage tumbling backward.
Luckily, Nigel dropped by at that point and gave the monster a faceful of fresh air, conjuring up a localised tornado that sent the big magical a-hole teetering over. For good measure, Bradley Flamewalker, encased in the translucent orange armor that also granted him increased stature and strength, charged into the manticore from the side like an over zealous linebacker. It tried to steady itself on the leg that I had already hurt and opened its mouth wide in a wail of pain as it put its weight on the scorched stump.
My next Blazing Bolt didn’t miss. It hit the manticore square in the kisser, shattering a selection of those razor-sharp pearly whites and blowing a hole out of the back of its head about the size of a beach ball. Blood and brains misted into the air. Great gobbets of charred flesh and sizzling lumps of grey matter rained down. Dinner plate-sized skull fragments went skittering across the floor. The manticore collapsed with a soft groan and lay still.
For a few seconds the only noise was the sound of he
avy breathing, as we stared at the rapidly cooling corpse of the monstrous form in front of us.
I puffed out my cheeks.
“Anyone else got a stitch?” I asked, feigning a wince.
Damien gave a short bark of laughter. “You fuckin’ smartass,” he said.
“What?”
“Didn’t you know that slaying monsters is like swimming soon after a meal, Damien?” Bradley asked. He was grinning, as the armor encasing him gradually faded and he returned to his original size.
There was a faintly audible click from behind us.
“Oh, thank goodness,” I said stonily, “the door’s open.”
“Friends,” Rick said, making the rest of us turn, as the big Earth Mage lumbered over, brushing dust off himself. “May I suggest that we get ourselves a poltergeist?”
“That’s a fucking good idea, Rick,” I said.
I turned to Nigel. “Couldn’t you have warned us that poltergeists were an important part of this whole dungeon setup, Nige?”
Nigel gaped like an enraged halibut.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” I said. “I think I know just the guy.”
My thoughts were already on Barry Chillgrave. He was the only poltergeist that I had ever met, and I was wondering whether I could entice him away from his Magical Paraphernalia store and see if he’d consider taking up the post of resident poltergeist at our fraternity. Then I remembered that Barry had been locked up in the Eldritch Prison by none other than Janet Thunderstone’s dour father, High Warden, Idman Thunderstone.
Busting him out of there might pose a bit of a problem.
We trooped slowly toward the door of the dungeon, with the faithful, suddenly full-grown saber-tooth following behind us.
“Friends,” Rick said, as I opened the door and the five of us and the saber-tooth began to trek up the stairs to the main hall, “do you think it would be okay if I went back there to skin that creature?”
“Are you going to set up your own line of cosy fur undergarments for the discerning gentleman, Rick?” I asked.
“No, I was thinking more along the lines of some sort of armor. Or perhaps a cape that I might imbue with some sort of magic.”
I nodded my head at this. “If anyone could pull that sort of badass Hercules-cum-viking look off, it’d be you, Rick,” I said.
“Do you even know how to skin something like that?” Damien asked.
“I could help you Rick,” Bradley said. “I’ve skinned a few things in my time. All in the name of culinary excellence, of course.”
“That is a fine offer, Bradley,” Rick said in his honest voice, “but on my island we say that if you cut your own firewood it shall warm you twice.”
We all considered this for a minute or two.
I was just about to say that I thought there might finally be some merit to this particular island saying of Rick’s when a crash from the open door at the head of the stairs made me look up sharply.
“Did you hear th—” Bradley said.
There was another echoing crash, and then another. There was a dull thump followed by the expensive sound of glass shattering.
“Boys,” I said, “is that some dumbass trying to break into our fucking frat house?”
“Who in the world would be stupid enough to try and break into a magical frat house?” asked Nigel.
There was a creaking of floorboards and the sound of hurrying footsteps.
“Does not sound like they are trying to break in,” Rick said.
“No,” I agreed. “It sounds like the sons of bitches are already inside.”
Without another word, the five of us pelted up the few remaining stairs. As I was in the lead, I crashed through the door first, my black crystal staff held high and the light of battle in my eyes.
Chapter Three
We raced up the stairs, my vector whacking into the dark wood of the bannisters and emitting a few bursts of what seemed to be excited sparks. The noises were echoing down from somewhere pretty high above and reverberating off the portrait-bedecked walls, so it was hard to pinpoint what floor the intruder or intruders might be on. When we reached the fourth floor, a crash shook the floorboards under our feet and a snarl of frustration came from a corridor on my right.
“Come on, fellas,” I said, hurrying down the passage.
As we neared the source of the commotion, I slowed my pace and moved forward with the black crystal staff raised in front of me. This particular corridor that I found myself leading my fraternity brothers down was one of the many hallways in my parent’s rambling old house that I had not been down yet.
In all honesty, I had spent very little time exploring my family home. This might have struck some as remiss and unfeeling, but I hadn’t even been enrolled at the Mazirian Academy for a full week yet. I’d spent much of my time either trying not to die in one gruesome and inconvenient way or another, or fooling around with one of my delectable female fellow students. So, I felt like I could be forgiven for not knowing every nook and cranny of our frat house.
“Anyone been down here before?” I asked in a hushed voice. I spoke over my shoulder, my eyes never leaving the corridor ahead.
A collection of grunts indicated that no one else had.
“The day that we’re prepared for, well, anything,” I said, “is going to feel really strange after blindly winging it for so long.”
The hallway was lined with windows on the left side. A Tim Burton-esque moon had risen over the town outside, and bars of moonlight dappled the thick carpet, which completely muffled the sounds of our footsteps as we drew closer to the source of the ruckus.
The corridor kinked off at the very end. The five of us drew together, pressed up against the wall. I looked at my frat brothers. From just around the corner came the snarls and muffled curses of someone working themselves up into a proper tantrum.
“Everyone good to go?” I asked quietly. “Vectors ready? Buttholes puckered?”
The others nodded. In their faces I saw my own feelings mirrored: some cheeky motherfucker had actually had the balls to break into our sanctuary! It was the sort of thing that couldn’t go unanswered. I nodded once and stepped around the corner.
The end of the corridor gaped open. There was no door as such, but the wall was split neatly in half—so neatly, in fact, that the large landscape painting that had evidently hung on the wall was also split right down the middle. I was pretty sure that, had I poked my head around the corner on any other day, I would have been greeted with a dead-end.
“Secret chamber,” Rick grunted from behind me. “Bodes ill.”
“Depends what’s in it,” I said.
I didn’t spare much of my attention on the room itself, though I did notice that it had been systematically pulled apart in a most violent fashion—there was shit strewn all over the place, furniture overturned, stacks of parchment reduced to confetti.
The figure standing in the brightly lit doorway was what commanded most of my attention. He was tall and thin and sickly pale. There was a slight hunch to his shoulders. He wore a faded brown robe, reminiscent of a Franciscan monk, and was muttering to himself in the sort of overly enthusiastic way that, had he been back on Earth, would have encouraged pedestrians to grab their children or pick up their small dogs and cross the street. All in all, he reminded me of a bit of chewed up twine.
“The only excuse that I’ll accept,” I said, stalking slowly forward, “for a stranger to be in our fraternity house, wrecking our shit, is for that person to be absolutely hammered. I’m talking toilet-hugging, knee-walking drunk. I can understand that. But, if you’re sober, pal, we’re going to have a real problem.”
The man did not turn straight away. He continued rifling through the draw that he was searching through without giving any sign that he had even heard me. His face was shrouded by a hood that was bunched up around his neck. All that I could see of his head was a gleaming, hairless white pate.
“Damien,” I said, “it looks like we
’ve got ourselves our very own Voldemort!”
Damien was the only member of the frat that had spent any time on Earth, and so was the only one who ever understood most of the comparisons I drew.
He grinned. “And it looks like he found religion.”
The gangly man ripped open the next drawer of the cabinet he was rooting through and started shaking out the notebooks that he found in there.
I sighed through my nose. I had been looking forward, after the fight with the manticore, to just going outside and sitting on the porch with a beer. Maybe getting a bit of a beer-pong competition fired up with the guys. This was not where I expected the night to take us.
Dipping into the reserve of mana that I knew lay within me, I flicked my wrist and sent a Storm Bolt flashing out through the air. It smashed into the cabinet that the stranger was looking through and sent it tumbling back into the room with a shattering crash that would have woken the dead in the graveyard at the bottom of the hill—if we hadn’t been obliged to destroy most of them in an impromptu battle a few days previously.
The stranger looked up at me. To say that he was ugly would have been doing him a great injustice. To secure the affection of even the most blindly loyal Labrador, he would have had to be wearing a pork chop medallion around his neck. The gleaming white face was more animal than man—sharp and pointed like a weasel’s—and his eyes were huge, bloodshot, and a pale green that conjured images of a couple of rancid poached eggs.
“Sorry to interrupt you, buddy,” I said, ”but I think it’s time that you were pissing off, don’t you?”
The man opened his mouth, showing a collection of broken teeth that were the color of the inside of a coffee cup that hadn’t been washed for about five years.
