by Ember Lane
“Now, let’s go,” Frank said. “Sooner we kill the beasty, the sooner we can get this vile stuff outta our noses.”
Billy went first, with Frank after, then Merl and Desmelda. Merl hated the dank, dark tower, and as he crossed its threshold it occurred to him he couldn’t remember anything about the tower’s base apart from the dreadnail itself. He stepped down the spiral stone steps toward the amber below. Billy and Frank looked like they could defeat a whole army, and Merl decided that the three of them were right together, like potatoes and mint.
“It’s just down here,” Billy said, but Merl knew he was saying for saying’s sake. Merl’s own butterflies were busy in his belly again, and the incessant drip that rained down the tower’s middle was counting down his doom.
“Down the bottom,” he said, but his words didn’t help him none.
They came to the end of the steps, and the four passageways that led away. Only one stood out, and that was the one the amber light came from. Merl took a hefty mouthful of air. He was already sick of the stench of the cloves.
“Down there?” Frank asked.
Billy nodded. “Who’s going first?”
Frank stepped forward.
“Stones of steel,” Merl muttered under his breath.
“Stones of steel,” Billy concurred.
Merl hesitated, then stepped into the passageway after Billy. He tried to sneak a peek ahead, but Billy nigh on scraped the walls with his shoulders and near scuffed the ceiling with his head. Before he knew it, he spilled out into a chamber that was shaped like a bugger-bee’s nest. As he shoved aside Billy, the dreadnail came into view.
“Don’t look at it, Frank!” Merl shouted, but his words came out all strange in his head, probably because of all the cloves up his nose.
The chamber was around twenty feet in diameter. It had a small fire pit in the middle, with a giant spider roasting on a turning spit. The dreadnail stood over from the fire. It looked much larger than Merl remembered. Taller than Billy, but as slim as Desmelda. Its draping skin made the beast look like its clothes had been burned to charcoal rags, and it had a faint, beetle-like, emerald tinge to it. The flames glimmered, lighting the cave walls with their mesmerizing dance.
The dreadnail was, indeed, a very strange creature. When it spoke, its words hissed around the chamber like a swirling ghost that kept tripping over its white sheet.
“To whaa do I oweee this new pleeeasure.”
Merl tried not to look into its eyes. He tried desperately. But he was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Their colors cycled in iridescent strips. Its pupils were as black as midnight and pulsing, drawing him in like a whirlpool.
Frank walked around the firepit as slow as a man could possibly stroll. His arms shot out in front of him like a dirty zombay walking gormlessly on.
“It’s got Frank,” Billy hissed. “Beautiful Frank,” he mumbled, and lumbered forward himself.
The roasting spider spat and hissed as the fire’s flames licked its poison sac. Great globules of its fat dripped onto glowing embers, sparking flashes of white as they spat and exploded. Merl sought out his truth beyond the dreadnail’s eyes but couldn’t quite fathom it. He knew that if he moved closer then maybe he could find where it lurked. Green cycled to blue, to turquoise and then yellow, to beige then brown, and brown to violet.
“Billyyyyy Muckspreaderrrr! Meeerllll!”
“Oh, for Andula’s sake,” Desmelda shouted. “Get a grip! It’s a bloody bug.” Her crimson magic shot across the firepit and wrapped around the dreadnail like the nine tails of a whip.
The bug’s eyes widened farther. Its spinning colors cycled furiously. “What! The filthy witch?” It shuddered as if it were about to explode, and then forced its arms out, which shattered the crimson bonds into a thousand ruby fragments that floated around the chamber like sparkling sequins. “What feeble magicssss was that?” With its arms outstretched and its skin flaps dangling like a frayed cloak, it leaned back and then shot forward, opening its maw and releasing its coiled black tongue.
The end of its tongue slapped Desmelda’s face, throwing her back down the passageway like she was a ragdoll launched from a child’s crib. Desmelda screamed as she vanished from the chamber. Merl watched from inside his head, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember who the woman was.
There were four of them, he remembered that much. There was Frank, the hero who he’d follow to hell and back, and there was Billy, and Billy meant everything to him, and then the dreadnail, and the dreadnail was his father, his true father—the father he’d always known would rescue him. And he was called Gathelgreg, except Merl now knew that wasn’t his real name. His real name sounded like a chesty cough rolling up your throat and exploding out of your mouth.
“Speak myyy reeeeal name, Meeerrlll.”
Merl wanted to. He desperately wanted to, but each time he tried, his lungs felt like they were going to tear apart.
“Speak myyy reeeeal name, Meeerrlll. Or kiillll Frank.”
Merl brought his cleaver up and walked towards Frank, who was in turn equipping Scaramanza and eyeing up Billy, who was in turn readying his elfen sword and staring at Merl with a mix of strangled hatred and bursting love.
Frank raised Scaramanza. Merl took a step forward. Billy lunged.
“No!” Desmelda cried as she rushed back into the room. She threw her magic at the dreadnail, wrapping the beast in binding thorns and trapping its arms once more. She sent two bolts of crimson magic straight into its kaleidoscopic eyes.
The dreadnail burst free of the thorns, then reared back and shot forward, but before its foul tongue could smash into Desmelda, the crimson bolts pierced its multicolored orbs. They burst like bubbles, popping and spraying their intraocular fluid into the hissing fire.
Freed from their binding draw, Frank twisted his arm in mid strike, narrowly missing Billy, but only because Billy lunged for Merl, stabbing his elfen sword out. But Merl struck with his cleaver, slicing down on Frank. But Frank had already stepped forward and swung Billy, so Merl’s strike missed too. Then Desmelda screamed at the top of her voice.
“Men!” And she leaped the fire pit and spit and crashed into the dreadnail, raining her fists down upon it. “I could sure use some help here… ANYONE?”
Stunned from his trance, Merl apologized to Frank and then dove for the dreadnail.
“Sorry,” said Frank to Billy, and he jumped into action.
Billy scratched his head and said, “Odd, it’s all plain odd.” He turned to the roasting spider, rotating the spit and prodding the beast to see if it was cooked.
Merl brought his cleaver down on the dreadnail’s neck, separating its head with the crunch of chitin scales and the squelch of the flesh underneath. Black ichor pooled out, as if the beast had no heart pumping its black blood around.
“Is that it? Is that the fight?” Merl asked, amazed at how easy it had been to kill.
“We’d have never defeated it if I couldn’t do this,” Desmelda said.
“Do what?” Merl asked.
Desmelda rolled her green eyes into the roof of her head, turning her eyeballs to pure zombay white.
Merl’s own balls turned to jelly, and he stumbled back, knocking over the pit, stomping into the embers, and falling backward into Billy. They went down in a heap of arms, , and fatty, roasting spider. Merl screamed as the spider exploded in a shower of molten ichor, but his and Billy’s pain was short lived as they were enshrouded in crimson magic. It soothed their wounds, healed them, and infused the pair of them with renewed energy.
They both sat up, blinked, rubbed their eyes, and then scampered away from the boiling spider.
Desmelda laughed as Frank looked on.
“What? What kind of a witch did you think I was?”
“A witchy witch?” said Billy.
“A good witch,” Desmelda told them.
11
It was night, and the sky was clear. Stars punctured its wonderful, deep-blue vista
. Merl and Billy huddled around the fire pit. They had Frank back, and all was well with the world, well, sort of.
“So, what do you think?” Frank asked them, and they all stared over at the quaint, stone cottage.
Desmelda was inside cooking some broth and occasionally chanting, “Eye of bat, ear of toad, one fat testicle, and one for the road.”
“Does she really have to sing that? Frank said with a shiver.
Merl looked up at night sky and marveled at its expanse. The forest’s black fringe surrounded them, just as they surrounded the roaring fire. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed. Perhaps with Portius? He wondered if she was looking up at the self-same sky and smiled at that thought. Even though separated by miles of land and a sea of zombays, they shared the stars. He wondered if the three of them would ever get back to the girls, though he, though he took solace in their journey so far. They’d vanquished every zombay that had crossed their path. They’d killed the goblin chieftain, and they’d slaughtered the duplicitous elves. But then a thought struck him. They weren’t three anymore. They were four.
It was Desmelda that had vanquished the dreadnail, and Merl knew they would have died without her.
So did Frank.
And so did Billy.
“Would she want to come with us?” Billy asked.
Frank shrugged. “No idea. I think a healer might come in useful, though. With a healer, we have more chance with monsters and the like.”
Merl narrowed his eyes. “Just how many monsters are we liable to have to face?”
“A few…”
Merl let out a sigh of relief.
“…too many,” Frank said.
“Why not ask her, like, and then if she says no, we don’t have to bother with all the head scratchin’?” Billy offered.
“And if she says yes?” Frank asked.
Billy cocked his head. “Then we discuss it.”
Frank did a double take. “So, we ask her, and if she says yes, we discuss whether she can come or not, and if we decide no, we tell her she can’t come even though we asked if she wants to come in the first place.”
“Sounds a bit ass about tit if you ask me,” Merl said.
Frank sighed. “Why don’t we decide whether we want to ask her or not?”
“Well, I want to ask her,” Billy said. “I want to know if she wants to come or not, now.”
“Me too,” Merl said.
“Actually, so do I. Let’s do it.” Frank stood up, but the other two remained seated. “Well?”
“Go on, then,” Billy said.
Desmelda stood in her doorway. “The broth’s ready. What are you three cooking up?”
Frank cleared his throat. “We want to know if you fancy accompanying us to the famous wizard’s city of Quintz to see if we can unravel the Power of Construction, amongst other things.”
Desmelda shook back her long hair and fluttered her eyebrows. “With three strapping men like you? It’s a girl’s wildest dream.”
Merl thought she might be being funny. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Hmmm, let me think. Pros: I get out of this forest and see the world. Cons: I leave my lovely house behind. What’s the Power of Construction?”
“Merl sees floating words everywhere,” Billy blurted.
“We think he has some of the powers held in the Wards of Arthur14579,” Frank explained. “He not only sees the words, he has texts in his head and can see notices on trees and walls and animals and the like.”
Merl puffed with pride. “I saw a shepherd’s crook with a dot under it over Aloysius’ head, and a stripe with a dot under over Mystix’s. I haven’t told you about that, yet.”
“A question mark and an exclamation mark,” Frank told him. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Who or what is Arthur14579?” Desmelda asked.
“A God? Some supreme being that built Quintz and then hid it away for all time?” Frank shrugged again. “We’re not quite sure.”
Desmelda rested her hands upon her hips. She slouched to one side and sort of wriggled a little. Merl thought she was about to start dancing and wondered why the heck she might do that. His gaze shot to her booted foot to check see if it was tapping. Walinda Alepuller had liked dancing. She used to drag his dad around their hut while screeching like a dune cat cornered by a dune dog. Desmelda sung much better than Walinda. Then again, Walinda was dead, so it really didn’t matter.
“Well, come inside and we’ll discuss it. After that I’ll decide if I want to come, and if I do decide to come you can decide if you want me to come or not. Does that sound about what you were going for?”
Frank shrugged like a little boy with his fingers caught in a cherry pie. Billy scratched his head, and Merl had to wonder whether the night was going to get even more befuddling or not. It had certainly gotten a good start. He hoped he could stay on the edge of things. His thoughts kept drifting away of late, and he quite liked it there. Fortunately for Merl, after they all sat at Desmelda’s table, a bowl of steaming broth in front of them, her attention landed solely on Frank.
“Spill,” she said simply.
“It’s like this,” Frank said, then cleared his throat, composing himself. “A while ago, I started seeing the same words as Merl does. It happened just after I nearly died. This place, for instance, is a level-five cottage.”
“A swan swimming the other way,” Merl added, then withdrew his neck like a startled turtle.
“Level five?” Desmelda asked.
“Yes,” Frank said. “A level one would be a simple cottage. A level two would be slightly better. You get the picture. But, I thought I was going mad when I first started seeing them. Just imagine it. Thought I’d lost it—that war had rinsed my mind of all reason—then I met a wizard, a wise sage named Thriftwing. He told me of a place called Quintz, of how it was tiny as an ant’s toe and sat in a broad valley where two birds stand guard and a river runs red to announce the summer’s arrival.”
“As small as an ant’s toe?”
“Under a spell of tinyfication.”
Desmelda took a long breath. “Tinyfication… Go on.”
“Well, with detailed and precise instruction, I found Quintz, and what a place it is too. Its fevered learning is a sight to behold, and yet they struggle to comprehend with even the simplest part of the wards.”
“The Power of Construction,” Desmelda said.
Frank took a gulp of wine. “Yes. Then Ricklefess—”
“Who was?”
“Who is my mentor… Ricklefess had a strange feeling that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He sent me to investigate, and I found Merl.”
“And then the world went to hell in a hand cart,” Merl lamented from the safety of his imaginary shell.
“Again, what is the Power of Construction?” Desmelda asked.
“I only know the power it promises. I am, believe it or not, Quintz’s most powerful wizard when it comes to that ward. We believe—well, I believe—Merl is infinitely more powerful. I’m also sure that his mastery of the ward will unlock others.”
Merl wondered who this Merl who had the same name as him was.
“And why does it matter? Why now, when the world has lived without it for an eternity?”
Frank looked at each of them in turn. He held the ensuing silence like it was a precious chalice. “Because we’re losing the war that Thriftwing and I were fighting. Because evil will darken our shores within the year. Because without the lore of Arthur14579 unraveled and mastered, we have no hope.”
Well bugger me, Merl thought. He kept that to himself!
“Err, Frank?”
“Yes, Merl?”
“Would have been nice to know…”
Frank pursed his lips. “Kinda got caught up in the whole zombay apocalypse, so it slipped my mind.”
“Slipped your mind?” Billy said, drawing back and screwing his face up. “The end of everything slipped your mind? Sounds a bit too important
to slip your mind. Fergetting t’put pants on, that could slip yer mind.”
“Who fergets to put their pants on?” Merl asked, astounded.
“Anyone can,” Billy explained. “You sleep too late, hear tha spreadin’ bells, and then rush, rush, rush, an’ before you know it—”
“Think we’re getting sidetracked here,” Desmelda interjected. “The Power of Construction sounds grand. Well, Frank, I think it’s down to you to show us.”
“Show you what?”
“Well.” Desmelda leaned on the table and entwined her fingers. She rested her chin on its resulting bridge. “If you’re the most powerful wizard in all of Quintz—”
“When it come to the wards of Arthur14579.”
Frank shifted a little uneasily, and Merl knew that when it came to wizarding stuff he was more than a little uncomfortable. Frank said nothing, nothing at all.
“When it comes to them,” Desmelda repeated. She took a sip of her wine and grabbed a chunk of bread from a loaf sitting in the table’s center. While she ruminated, she looked at each of the three of them in turn. “Okay, I’ll play along. I’ve never heard of this Arthur14579, and I’ve never heard of this magic of his. I know my magic, and I’m sure of it. Healing herbs, powerful stones, tapping the land’s energy for good or evil—all these things I accept—but the Power of Construction? It sounds… lame.”
“Lame?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow and twirling his goblet at the same time.
“What are you going to do? Build a house on your enemy? Trap him in a circular wall? I’m confused, bemused, plain old dazzled by your words. Threats of an evil upon our horizons. Talks of desperate wizards and magical cities. Tinyfication? It all sounds fearsome, but not when you’re trying to counter it using… the Power of Construction. Have you thought about using a… Oh, I don’t know… An army?”
Frank pursed his lips and let a resigned laugh slip out. He tore his gaze from his twirling goblet and matched it with hers. “I don’t have any answers for you. All I know is mostly what I don’t know. That power is real, and yes, we don’t understand it, but we have to have faith that there is more, that there is more to it than what we know.”