Confessions of a Dork Lord

by Mike Johnston

  “Wow,” I said. In that instant, my whole life came into focus. Everything made sense.

  Well, most of it did. There was still one tiny issue. “Yeah,” I said, “but even if I’ve got the power and I somehow find it, I’m not really into lava flows or reducing whole cities to ash. I don’t even like smoke! It makes my eyes water.” As soon as I finished, Mom started shaking her head again. I thought she was going to say something about my hair or the fact that I hadn’t bathed since I’d left the Grimhold, but apparently that wasn’t all that was wrong with me.

  “Son,” she said, “if you’d actually READ the Dark Lord biographies, you’d know there is more than one kind of grim ruler. Sure, your father loved to reduce a mountain to cinders or turn a forest to ash. He was all about fire and brimstone, but his predecessor, Hannibal Flat, never once started a fire or sent lava shooting into the sky. He was into earthquakes. Hagatha Drake used the wind when she was the Dark Lady. She sent tornadoes hurtling at her enemies. You’ll find a power that suits YOU.”

  “And what about the scepter?” I asked, knowing that it must be out there somewhere. But before they could answer, both my parents went from ghosts back to smoke. Then the smoke faded, vanishing into the air.

  “Hold on!” I cried. “Is that it?” I’d waited ten years to meet my parents, and they’d come and gone in a flash. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye. I still had a million questions. Like when would MY moment arrive? How would I find my fireball? Also, could anything this silly be true? A natural spell caster? What did that mean? It sounded like something out of a bad warlock novel.

  “Mom?” I asked. “Dad? You can’t be gone—not yet!”

  “We’re still here, son,” Dad said. “But we’ll be gone in a moment. I saved one last bit of magic. There’s something else you need to know.”

  “I’m all ears,” I said.

  “Son, sometime around sunrise, Halitosis will show up. We told him where to find you. He’ll use his fiery breath to scorch a hole in the wall. You know, he actually CAN breathe flame. Most of the time he’s just too lazy to do it.”

  “Forgot about that one,” I said.

  “Oh, and, son,” Mom interjected, “when that tornado of swirling flame hits the wall, you should probably step out of the way.”

  “Okay,” I said, but there was no reply. No ghosts and no voices either. They were gone—really gone.

  I took a deep breath and thought about what had just happened. If Dad was right, I’d been living Operation Dark Lord my entire life. He’d had a plan for me, and it started the day he vanished. Somehow, in all this humiliation, I’d find my strength and become the next Dark Lord. I’d learn my own brand of enchantment, and I was guessing it wouldn’t involve tornadoes of flame or anything like that.

  I wished again that I’d had more time with my parents. Was this the last time I’d ever see them? Had they really used every last drop of magic they’d stored in the scepter? I didn’t know. I was sad to see them go, but sort of happy they’d warned me about the fire thing.

  Too bad they forgot to mention WHICH wall Halitosis planned to vaporize.

  TOMBSDAY

  I spent the night huddled in the middle of my room, thinking about Mom and Dad’s warning, looking at each of the walls and wondering which one was about to melt away into flame. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep. And in the end, my parents were totally wrong!

  Dragons fly, so they generally attack from above. Gorey would call this an “aerial assault.” Halitosis must have been hovering above the castle when he cut loose with his flame, because the hole didn’t appear in the wall. He blasted an opening in the ceiling.

  This was bad for a couple reasons. First, the ice didn’t just evaporate. Well, some of it did, but the rest turned to water. Second, Storey was in the room above me, so she came down with the melted ice and landed pretty much right on top of my head. She’d also drawn her sword as she fell, and it nearly cut me in two.

  She hit the water, and we both took a moment to recover as she drew back her blade. The two of us floated up a bit on the tide. But there wasn’t enough water to lift Storey and me up to the roof of the castle, which was why it would have been a whole lot easier if Hal had just burned a hole in the wall. The blue sky glistened in the distance, but I saw no way to reach the castle roof.

  Fortunately for us, Storey’s IMPRACTICALLY long sword had at last found a PRACTICAL use. She dug her blade into what was left of the ice walls, and we both pulled ourselves up on the sword’s massive haft.*

  Storey’s soldierly training must have finally kicked in, because she did some pretty impressive stuff over those next few hours, and we worked as a team. Storey stabbed her sword into the ice. Then we took turns helping pull each other up by the blade’s grip. It seemed like something friends might do, but I didn’t want to mess things up by saying a bunch of mushy stuff, so I kept quiet and let Storey do her work. I think we wasted half the morning climbing out of that tunnel. But we found a pleasant surprise at the top.

  I was excited to see Oggy, but when I opened my mouth to speak, I remembered we weren’t allowed to talk to each other. So I told Storey to tell Oggy I was glad he’d joined our mission.

  She said, “I’m just here to keep you alive. Get your own messenger.”

  “It’s okay, Wick. We can talk,” said Oggy. I thought he had a screw loose. He’d never directly disobeyed his mom and dad before. But here he was, defying his parents, which was a big deal. Remember, Oggy’s mom expected him to follow orders and all that military stuff. He’d be in deep trouble when we got back to the castle . . . But Oggy made no mention of it. He had a pixie in his pocket and was eager to show it to me.

  I pretended to be interested in the little fellow while I asked the obvious question: “Why’d it take so long for you guys to show up?”

  “Um, yeah,” said Oggy. “Halitosis heard your call. Someone whispered your location in his ear. He just didn’t do anything about it.” Oggy glared at Hal. “Apparently he was in the middle of a long nap and couldn’t be bothered. But when I heard the news, I knew it had to be urgent. So I threatened to poke him every time he closed his eyes until we left.”

  “Good one,” I said. Oggy’s specialty was monsters; he knew the right way to motivate a dragon.

  “Not really,” said Oggy. “Hal politely told me he could turn me into roasted half orc with a single breath of flame. But I reminded HIM that Gorey frowned on that sort of thing.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Didn’t Gorey threaten to kick Hal out of the castle the last time he fried one of us? I forgot about that one.”

  “Exactly, so I reminded him of Gorey’s warning. And since Hal’s generally too lazy to move out of the castle, he agreed to rescue you.”

  Sometime around then, Halitosis stirred from his nap. “Too lazy to move out? Is that what I heard?” Hal was obviously offended. “I happen to enjoy living in the Grimhold, and that incident with the ogre was taken completely out of context. He was partially fried at best.”

  “Well, it’s just nice to know you care, Hal.”

  “Not really,” said Oggy. “He took another nap before we left.”

  “It was a short nap,” Hal muttered, a hint of regret creeping into his voice. “I barely recall closing my eyes.”

  I took that as an apology and forgave Hal for being a generally lazy and terrible friend. He’d done his job. Also, Oggy and I had a lot to catch up on. I told him about Nightshadows North and the kennings.

  “They have cooler names for pretty much everything,” I said. “The giants call war the ‘weather-of-weapons’ and a knife is an ‘icicle-of-blood.’ My favorite? Death. They call it the ‘sleep-of-the-sword.’ Oh, and I like this one, too. They call their beards ‘chin-forests,’ or ‘chin-hedges’ when they’re well trimmed.”

  I don’t think Oggy understood the kennings because he kept calling them �
�Ken-things,” like they belonged to some wizard named Ken. I figured he’d catch on eventually. And besides, wordplay wasn’t our most pressing concern.

  The giants had found us. I heard them talking as they hurried up the stairs. Apparently, One Eye was REALLY close to making up his mind about letting me go or smashing me or whatever. They went on about all the careful thought he’d put into his decision. I respected his dedication to the problem, but I had no interest in experiencing the sleep-of-the-sword or the hammer-of-the-just. I’d learned enough kennings for one lifetime.

  “Sorry, guys,” I told the giants. “We’ll have to save the sweat-of-war”—blood—“and hammer-kisses”—punches—“for another time. We won’t be spilling any raven’s-wine”—blood, again—“today.” I used a lot of kennings, but they didn’t seem impressed. The giants were set on stopping my escape, and no amount of wordplay could dissuade them.

  So we began the dance-of-war, which is a terrible kenning. I pictured the icy fiends waltzing, but that’s NOT AT ALL what it means.

  A storm of one-hundred-foot-tall giants descended on us. Spears of snow rained down from every direction, and arrows of ice fell like hail. It was stranger than anything I’d seen in Weird Rain, and deadlier too.

  Storey drew her blade. Up until today, I’d thought her longer-than-long sword was just a nuisance. But it HAD been helpful in the ice shaft. And when she lifted it to fight the giants, I realized that her inordinately long sword was the perfect length for slaying giants. I guess that was the reason she brought it.

  Storey readied herself for the fight. But there was no way she could defeat a whole army of giants. As for us, Oggy and I hid behind Hal. Let’s face it, this was no time for bravery, and I wasn’t ever going to find my magic if a giant stepped on me.

  We were all in serious trouble.

  Fortunately, Hal took over the situation. One of those ice arrows hit him straight on the forehead and woke him from his most recent nap. That was a bad move—a very bad move. Few things in the Known World are deadlier than an angry dragon. And nothing angered Hal more than a nap cut short. So there would be no smashed warlocks or crushed goblins. We would not “feed-the-eagles.”

  Aside from his fiery breath, Hal had a second weapon at his disposal. And in my opinion, this one was a hundred times worse than his flame. The dragon took a deep breath and unleashed his terrible, unthinkably bad breath on the giants.

  Vomit erupted from their mouths. It shot like geysers, and there was no way to avoid it. Puke poured from the sky in eighty-foot-long waterfalls. The best thing we could do was close our eyes and cover our mouths as it rained down on us. And that was just the start of it. Apparently, the smell also got into the frost giants’ heads. Their shoulders wobbled. Their knees swayed back and forth. Their great, armored chests listed. One by one the giants fell, knocking into one another and colliding with the castle walls.

  When a score of eighty-foot-tall giants keel over, it’s almost impossible to get out of the way. Bodies fell in every direction. The sun and sky vanished. We needed to fly, literally. I got everyone onto Hal’s back and told him to go. Dragons are as fast as lightning, faster even. They just don’t like to let anyone know it. But those giants weighed enough to turn even Hal into smooshed lizard, so he tore out of there in a genuine flash.

  We escaped the giants, but when the dragon turned around and told us to hold on tight, his breath hit us in one terrible, awful-smelling wave. First I felt the dizziness, then the light-headedness, followed by the loss of vision. Oggy and I, Storey, and even that pixie fainted.

  WORMSDAY

  I woke on Hal’s back. Actually, I was knocked out of my sleep by the hilt of Storey’s annoyingly long sword. Seriously, it slapped me on the head every time Halitosis flapped his wings.

  We were on our way back to the Grimhold, but Storey insisted that we pick up the two ogres, Angry and About to Clobber You. She said they worked for Gorey, so she was “contractually bound” to give them a lift home. Apparently, the general had threatened to have her drawn and quartered if she didn’t return with all of us intact. Hal grumbled a bit about the extra weight, but Storey said he’d be paid in gold for his services. So Hal landed, and the ogres stumbled onto his back. Both were happy to catch a ride. And as for us, we were just glad to be headed home. We flew over the snow-covered mountains, soaring high above the bottomless ravines and tall cliffs the ogres had climbed to reach the castle. We glided over the dense forest, descending to the lower altitudes where the snow thinned and the air was warmer. Hal cleared the mountains and soared above the barren flatlands that surround the castle. Storey sat with her back turned to me, head buried in her journal, while Oggy and I enjoyed the view. Hal complained about having too many passengers. And the ogres spent most of the journey just trying not to fall off the dragon’s back.

  As the sun faded from the sky, I caught sight of the Grimhold’s obsidian walls and the bubbling water that encircled them. Hal landed at the edge of the Gurgling Lake of Sulfur, and we dismounted. I put my noseplugs in place so I could talk face-to-face with the dragon.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said.

  “You are welcome, young warlock. However, you are also on your own for the rest of your journey,” he said.

  “I might need a bit more help. You see, we haven’t quite reached the castle,” I said, but Hal shook his big, scaly head.

  “This is for the best. Think on it, Wick,” he said. Then he told me he planned to take a nap right there and then, and didn’t expect to wake for a few months. He asked me to rouse him if a year went by. Otherwise, he had done his part and was ready for some well-deserved sleep.

  Hal is a pretty smart guy, so I had to trust that what he said was right. And when I thought about it, I realized that he had done me a favor. If he’d dropped off the crew in the Grimhold’s courtyard, EVERYONE would have seen us arrive. If they laid eyes on me, they’d want to know why I’d snuck out of the castle. I didn’t want to explain how I’d tried to snag the thief but had come back empty-handed. Bob and the other grimmies would just laugh at me. But Hal had set us down on the far side of the lake. No one had seen us arrive. So I gave him a tap of appreciation, wished him sweet dreams, and got started on a new plan.

  I needed to sneak back into the castle, catch old Wormfinger with the scepter, and turn him over to Gorey. Once I caught the thief, no one would question why I’d left the castle. The mystery would be solved, and I’d be the hero, or so I hoped. That’s how things needed to go down, but there was no way I could slip into the Grimhold on my own. I needed a favor from the team, but Storey and the ogres were just a bunch of hired hands. They weren’t friends like Hal and Oggy, not yet. They were there to protect me, not to follow my orders. If I wanted their help, I’d have to convince them to join my mission.

  So I confessed. I told them about Operation Dark Lord and my crazy plans. I said I’d gone on a quest and failed, but I was giving things a second chance. I explained my theory about Wormfinger and the scepter. I even recounted how I’d been visited by the Dark Lord and Dark Lady. I was a changed warlock. And I thought I’d found the thief, but I needed their help to sneak back into the castle unnoticed.

  “The grim folk need a Dark Lord. And I’m the only guy you’ve got, so I just need you to move a bunch of really heavy things while I stand around and give orders. It’s basically what leaders do,” I said. It wasn’t the most convincing speech, but I knew the ogres loved to lift things. They looked at each other, nodded their heads, and cried, “We lift!”

  Oggy said he’d give it a shot, but Storey totally ignored me. “Call me if a statue falls on your head. Otherwise, I’ve got work to do,” she said as she sat down and started scrawling away in her journal.

  I assumed she was working on her plan of attack, so I went back to mine.

  As darkness descended on the Gurgling Lake of Sulfur, the liquid turned a toxic shade of yellow, and I had
to remind Oggy and the ogres that the water was mostly harmless and only knee-deep. The basilisks were the real danger. They had that nasty habit of turning folks into stone. But, like everyone else in the Grimhold, they needed sleep. Lucky for us, their bedtime had just arrived.

  I watched the sun’s last rays disappear from the sky, waiting while the darkness gathered. I didn’t want to risk another basilisk incident, so we hung out until it was plenty dark and I was certain the last of the red-eyed monsters had dozed off.

  Then we went to work.

  And there was LOTS of it to do, but naturally the ogres did the heavy lifting. It’s not that I’m lazy (though I am), but those guys are just taller and stronger than Oggy or me. We needed to gather up the statues, and it was difficult for someone of my . . . um . . . stature to lift a life-size hunk of stone. They weighed more than I did, so my excuse was pretty solid. Even Oggy, who is half orc, failed to move even one.

  Again, I asked Storey to lend a hand.

  “I’m a warrior, not a mover,” she replied. “Let me know when you need me to cut something in half.”

  I took that as a no and let Storey return to her journal. The ogres didn’t really want her help anyway, and we didn’t need all of the statues. A hundred was enough. That’s about how many they were able to gather up and arrange.

  You see, the statues in the Lake of Sulfur were once knights or other invaders—the enemy. They wore armor and held swords and spears and all that stuff. The wood and steel doesn’t turn to stone; that’s not how the magic works. So, with their helmets on and the visors lowered before their stone faces, the statues looked like a real army, or so I hoped. After all, they were still stuck in those silly poses. I tried to use one of the spells from the pocket guide to make a few of the more awkward statues vanish, but I bumped into one of the stone knights while I was waving my fingers and the enchantment fizzled.