Tong Lashing

by Peter David

  “Ye have submitted yerself to my authority as Magic Maestro,” said Ronnell. “By the laws of this game, yer bound t’me, and the game must be seen through to the end.”

  “And what constitutes the end?” I asked.

  “Until ye lose,” he replied, which was pretty much the answer I’d suspected.

  “And if we win?”

  He laughed at that. “Oh, I think the dice will see that doesn’t happen. But,” he added, “ye never know. They can be capricious.” Then he laughed once more, and there was another flash of lightning for further punctuation.

  Then, as if further discussion was pointless—which it probably was—Ronnell McDonnell of the Clan McDonnell looked back down at the adventure he was charting. In a soft, insistent voice, he said, “The entire hallway in front of ye is aflame.”

  “We back up,” I said quickly, “and head for the exit.”

  “Bad news,” said Ronnell, not sounding as if he thought it was particularly bad. “A monstrous cave troll is standing between ye and the exit. He advances on ye. He looks hungry. The chances are that he will devour ye. However, he’s a relatively young troll and will likely be satisfied with one of ye.”

  There was deathly silence for a moment, and suddenly Farfell shouted, “We toss him the cleric!”

  “The hell you do!” Tomas cried out, doubting less and less by the moment. He lunged for the dice, but Farfell scooped them up and dropped them as if they were red hot. The dice skidded across the table and came up double six.

  “The move works,” Ronnell said calmly.

  “It doesn’t work!” Tomas said, and suddenly the front of his body seemed to explode, as if it was being ripped open by a great unseen force. I ducked to avoid the hurtling organs that splattered just above me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glow and then the unbelieving Tomas was gone, his essence ripped from his body with as much force as his body was ripped from itself.

  The ship tilted wildly, the force of the storm growing. I heard cries of alarm from the deck above. The sailors were running around to batten down this or tie off that. Their struggle to keep afloat would have been of far more importance to me were I not concerned with my own impending death struggle.

  Ronnell McDonnell was grinning viciously. “The monstrous cave troll chokes on the cleric as pieces of him lodge in its throat and it dies…”

  “We race for the exit,” I said.

  “…but it falls in front of the exit, blocking yer way out with its sheer bulk. It’s too heavy for ye t’lift.”

  “I take out my sword of power and start hacking at it,” said Farfell. He kept glancing nervously at the charred remains of the Mousser. He looked as if he wanted to start sobbing, but was too afraid to do even that.

  “Yer sword deflects off it.”

  “I hit it again.”

  “Yer sword bounces away once more,” said Ronnell. He was beginning to look slightly impatient. “There is, however, another door down at the opposite end. It appears t’be open…”

  “I hit the ogre with my sword,” insisted Farfell.

  Ronnell appeared to be getting annoyed, and I immediately realized why. Farfell had apparently discovered a move he could make that was fairly harmless. If he made no further move in the game, then he would be impervious to anything bad happening to him. He would hack at the unyielding ogre from now until doomsday for all he cared. Meantime, sooner or later, someone who wasn’t a participant in this cursed game would enter the room and, with any luck, beat Ronnell senseless. I would have been howling for help the entire time, but the sounds of the storm outside were too vicious. I knew it would have been a waste of effort.

  “The blade. Bounces. Off.”

  His teeth gritted with intensity, Farfell repeated, “I hit. The Ogre. With. My Sword.”

  Ronnell sat back in his chair for a moment, appearing to consider the situation. Then he shrugged. “Very well. Roll the dice.”

  Farfell immediately picked up the dice and tossed them. They clattered across the table and came up a two and a three.

  “All right,” said Ronnell. “Your sword blade bounces off the ogre and stabs you through the heart.”

  Farfell opened his mouth to protest, but blood began to pour out. His eyes widened and he clutched at his chest. There was more blood oozing between his fingers. His eyes shone with anger and confusion, and then with one final despondent glance in the direction of the Mousser, he keeled over.

  Just before Farfell hit the floor, once again there was that glorious glow of light that, under other circumstances, I would have gazed upon with wonder. Now it simply horrified me as the essence of Farfell leaped across the table and into the receptive Ronnell.

  He gasped in what sounded like almost sexual delight, and then he sat there, his head lolling for a few moments, rubbing his chest while his tongue strayed across his lips. Then he let out a contented sigh and looked at me.

  “You’re obviously full,” I said. “We can continue this later. I’m sure…”

  “The door awaits ye,” he told me.

  I forced a smile, trying to ignore the rapid thudding of my heart.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure it does. And don’t think I’m not anxious to get myself killed for your dining and dancing pleasure. But the fact is, I was never much for adventures to begin with. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon shut this one down.”

  “Tell ye what. I’ll make it easy for ye,” he said. “Ye suddenly find yerself magically transported through the door into the adjoining chamber. There before ye, ye see a great flaming sword hanging in the middle of the room, suspended by an invisible force.”

  “And you must think I’d be a great flaming idiot for even considering getting anywhere near it.”

  “Ye are going to reach for the sword. Roll the dice to see if ye are able to command it.”

  I still couldn’t rise out of my chair. I tried to reach around to yank my own sword from its scabbard in the hope that I could fling it at him, perhaps impale him. But my arm wouldn’t move.

  “Ye think t’kill me,” he smiled, as if able to read my mind… which, for all I knew, he could. “It doesn’t end that easily, Apropos. Ah am the Magic Maestro. Ah control yer destiny.”

  Something in the way he said that, the incredible smugness, overcame my blinding fear and ignited my rage, which was always bubbling just beneath the surface anyway. “The hell you do!” I said. “I’d’ve lived a long and happy life if I didn’t have a destiny of any sort. Instead I’ve spent my entire existence with different people telling me I have a great destiny that I’m supposed to live up to. A destiny I want no part of, thank you very much. But this much I know: I’ll be damned if I give a bullying, soul-sucking lunatic like you command over whatever destiny my future holds, great or not. You control my destiny? Gods supposedly control man’s destiny, and I’ve killed a god or two in my time, so don’t think you can sit there all menacing and magical and get me to knuckle under to your parlor tricks!”

  He didn’t seem remotely impressed. “Roll the dice.”

  “You roll the bloody dice!” and I lunged, sweeping my hand back as if to knock them toward him.

  And he flinched. His face was still a mask of forboding, but for a heartbeat there was a look of concern in his eyes as he shrank back from even the prospect of the accursed dice coming his way.

  That was when I realized. I thought about how he had never actually touched the dice. He had upended them onto the table from their pouch.

  The thunder cracked outside, closer and closer, and there were even more alarmed shouts from above.

  A desperate thought flashed through my mind, and apparently it did so at the exact same moment in Ronnell’s. We both grabbed our respective ends of the table and tried to upend it, angle it so that we were in the superior position and the downward slope of the table would send the dice clattering toward the other.

  The power in my arms, thanks to a lifetime of hauling myself around by them to compe
nsate for my lame leg, is not to be underestimated.

  He shoved the end of the table upward, and the dice tumbled toward me. I pushed forward, shoved back, briefly shifting the tilt so the dice began to roll the other way. I tried to shove the table over so the accursed things would fall to the floor. It didn’t work. They clung to the table with an uncanny life of their own, which I was beginning to suspect they truly did possess.

  We grunted, cursing at one another, trying with all our respective might to bring ruin upon the other. The dice rolled one way and then the other as we jockeyed for position, and the rocking of the boat itself didn’t help matters.

  The mug of mead I’d been drinking from overturned, falling against my chest and sending foaming liquid cascading into my lap. I jumped from the unexpected coldness, and Ronnell let out a triumphant howl as he thrust upward with all his strength and the dice tumbled right toward me. There was no way I was going to be able to avoid them.

  Seized with a final burst of desperation, I grabbed the mug and brought it up to the table level. The poisonous dice tumbled into the mug without coming into physical contact with my person.

  For an instant Ronnell hadn’t seen what happened, and tried to move the table so he could get a better view. Grabbing the opportunity, I slammed the table forward. The far end struck him full in the face, and I heard a satisfying crack, which I recognized as the sound of a nose being broken (having heard it several times emerging from my own face). I shoved the table aside, the game components clattering to the floor, Ronnell flopping back onto his chair and grabbing at his nose, muttering a string of imprecations.

  “And you can choke on your flaming death sword!” I shouted, as I swung the mug around and let fly the dice.

  For the first roll of the evening, luck was with me, for Ronnell opened his mouth wide to shout something at me, and the dice flew straight in as if they had eyes. Snake eyes.

  He gasped, choked, and reflexively swallowed, and I reached into myself and into him with pure force of will and snarled, “The flaming sword of doom doesn’t like you.”

  He coughed, gagged, clutched at his throat, at his chest, as whatever dark magic the dice possessed worked its way and will through him. He began to tremble and toss about, and suddenly I could stand once more, which I did so forcefully that I overbalanced the chair and fell backward out of it. I scrambled to my feet as best I could, clutching my staff. I pressed the hidden trigger and a blade snapped out of the open mouth of the carved dragon on the end.

  I wasn’t going to need it.

  Ronnell fell against the bulkhead, trembling, howling, energy appearing to build up from within him, smoke rising from his open mouth, from his ears. His eyes began to smolder, and jets of flame suddenly ripped from them as he screamed. It was then I realized the significant problem. When others had rolled the dice, whatever horrific circumstance had hit them had struck from without and worked its way in. With Ronnell, it was going from the inside out.

  The table was sideways on the floor. I threw myself behind it just as Ronnell exploded with deafening force. The game documents, the partition he’d used, all went up instantly. The incredible power of the energies released slammed the table back against me, and me in turn against the far wall.

  I heard a massive roaring and thought it was coming from within my head. Then the smell of salt and spray was overwhelming, and I peeped out from behind my table just in time to see a sight that caused my heart to sink somewhere into my boots.

  Ronnell was gone.

  So was a good chunk of the boat.

  Where he’d been standing and exploding, there was now a vast, gaping hole, and seawater was rushing in with the eagerness of a group of sellswords at a virgins’ convention. There was no way out. The water was gushing everywhere, barreling up the steps leading to the upper decks. I did the only thing I could think of: I clutched onto the table for dear life, lying flat on my staff to hold it in position as best I could.

  Seconds later there was water everywhere. I took a deep breath, wondering how many days I could hold it, and then I was yanked out of the room, holding on desperately. I had clutched my first lover with less tenacity than I did that large piece of wood.

  Water pounded against my face, and I held on all the more tightly. Then I was out of the ship and completely submerged, whipping around, closing my eyes and trying not to gasp reflexively from the shock of the chill water and violence of the spin. I wanted to cry out, I wanted to curse. Either response would have been fatal. So instead I sank my teeth into the inside of my lower lip and found myself praying to beings for whom I’d had nothing but contempt before. At that point I even recalled the time when I’d crossed a stone bridge into the land of Wuin and had fancied I’d seen sea gods raging at me from either side as the waters had surged around me. They seemed rather annoyed with me at the time. I wondered bleakly if they carried a grudge.

  I tumbled about, lost track of which way was up and which was down. I figured that I had some measure of safety, since wood floats. Then I thought about the fact that the boat I’d been on was most likely going to sink like a rock, and suddenly the buoyancy of wood was called into question. Trying not to panic even as I felt the air beginning to burn in my lungs and seeking release, I let out a few bubbles and watched them float. They trickled away in the direction that, had I been left to my own devices, I would have sworn was down. Perhaps the gods were perverse enough to reroute air bubbles to lead me astray. I’d put nothing past those poxy bastards. Nevertheless, I decided to trust in what I laughingly referred to as nature and I kicked in the direction of the bubbles, keeping the table tightly under me.

  There seemed to be nothing but darkness ahead, and I was becoming more and more certain that I was simply steering myself to a dark and soggy death in the pit of inky blackness that was the ocean. And then suddenly I was up and out, bobbing to the surface under a night sky that was alive with lightning all around. I looked down and saw that my staff was still wedged beneath me. I was relieved. That walking staff and I had been through a lot together, and I would have been loath to lose it.

  I bounced up and down like a leaf upon the rough waters. I started screaming for help, why I don’t know. I managed to twist around enough to see the ship in the distance. The Larp was listing wildly, and I could see sailors tumbling into the water. They were so far away that I couldn’t even hear their screams against the storm, and so ceased my own, realizing that all I’d do was hurt my throat.

  Then I saw something that will always stay with me. High, high in the crow’s nest, I saw Captain Stout. I was certain it was he, even as far away as I was. He was clutching onto the main mast, and he was saluting, making no effort to abandon the ship and save himself… not that he would have likely had much opportunity for salvation. For some reason, I was certain that he was smiling as I watched the mast slowly descend into the water. Seconds later the ship rolled over onto its side and then sank without a trace. There was no indication that there had been a vessel there at all.

  Here I’d sat down to a simple foolish game, and as a result was stranded in the middle of nowhere on a plank, all thanks to Ronnell McDonnell.

  “I deserve a break today,” I muttered.

  Chapter 3

  Bored on Board

  I‘ve spent a considerable portion of my life drifting, essentially. Never before, however, had I found myself in a position where I was doing so literally rather than figuratively. It was somewhat ironic, really, although I’ve noticed that irony is something better appreciated from a great distance of either miles or years, or both, and best appreciated when it’s happening to someone else.

  In this instance, it was happening to me. Then again, why not? Everything seemed to happen to me.

  Except as I floated under the night sky, calling as loudly as I could to see if any voices responded and hearing none, I had to admit that for all I mourned my unceasing hideous luck, I also possessed the most uncanny streak of good fortune that any fool had ever b
een “blessed” with.

  Over and over again, I would be thrust, all unwilling, into the mouth of danger. Once again for no damned good reason, I’d survived it. The former incident was bad luck, the latter, good. Which led me to decide that I was the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet, since my luck ran so extremely in both directions.

  It was now simply a matter of finding out which aspect of my luck was going to be holding sway for the duration of my decidedly disturbing ocean voyage.

  I clutched tightly to the table, skimming over the choppy waves as best I could. Every so often I would be completely submerged, and I would wait to be dragged down to the bottom. A nameless watery grave: how fitting for one whose greatest boast throughout his life was that he had nothing.

  But gods or fate or what-have-you were not interested in letting me off that easily, no. As many times as I was pulled down, I bobbed back to the surface moments later. I was drenched, I was miserable, I was cursing the fates (since at that point I wasn’t taking the long view of being grateful to be alive), and overall it was one of the most miserable nights I’d spent in my life. And considering some of the nights I’d spent, that’s saying something.

  I didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep at all, because I was concerned that as soon as I dozed off, I’d lose my grip on the table and slip off into the water. Apparently my survival instinct was more powerful than even I realized, however. One moment I was flat on my back, staring up at the moon, and the next I was blinking against the morning sun. Spray was misting in my face, and the salt water caused my eyes to tear. Slowly I sat up, being careful not to dislodge my rather precarious perch, and looked around.

  Nothing.

  Just vast, vast stretches of emptiness. Water as far as I could see, stretching to the horizon, stretching away.

  It had not been all that long ago that I had been “adrift” in a similar situation that was simultaneously the exact opposite. I had been in the middle of a fearsome desert with nothing but sand and dirt all around me. Water was a distant and fanciful dream. Now here I was with more water than any sane person could hope to want to see, but just as helpless. Worse off, really. At least I couldn’t drown in sand. Also, at least Sharee was with me the last time. If you’re going to die alone, it’s always nice to have someone along for the ride.