by Craig Zerf
The mage of many masters stood up, centre stage as it were, and took the floor. ‘My dear quest members,’ he started. ‘First let me assure you. I know why you are all here and I have spent many a slumber-free nocturnal sojourn a-contemplating and divining. This Bil de Plummer, the unknown evil, is now known to me. He is not of this world coming from a far-off place of complications and politicians. A corrupt world of actors, inventions and political correctness. And in coming here he has upset the balance of that finely tuned see-saw on which the children of good and evil both ride. And now evil’s big brother has come to play and good has not sufficient weight to participate in the game. My friends, if we do not right this imbalance then all is lost, and I mean all. This is the big one, the full Monty, the last roll of the dice, sphincter tightening time, the do-or-die moment, last will and testament time, the small-faced moment, balls to the wall…’ (He continued longer in this vein using more last ditch-type analogies than this author could ever hope, or bother, to think up).
‘So, my noble questarians, what do we plan to do about it? And I ask this in a rhetorical fashion as how could you know the reply when I have not yet gifted you with the correct answer, what with me being the master magician’s master’s masters master’s master (master?) and all. This, my dear friends, noble questers, fellow mages and stonking little blondes with huge…Trogres as companions (Hah, got you), is the answer. You must go forth and correct the imbalance. Right the wrongs. Do the deeds of good. Crush the bad, protect the weak and help the needy. When you have in some way helped to correct the imbalances, and caused Bil and his evils to become weaker and you and your goodness to have grown in stature, then, and only then might you have the power to succeed.’
Well if the masterly endowed one was expecting a happy response to this revelation then he was much mistaken, or would have been if he had, but he didn’t, so he wasn’t, so we needn’t have worried. For he was a master magician’s masters buggery and so on and he knew exactly how they would respond, and they did, so he was right, as he knew he would be.
‘Bloody hell,’ expleted Cabbie. ‘Why don’t you just tell us to save the world whilst you’re about it?’
The mega mastered mage stared at Cabbie. ‘My dear knight,’ he assured, ‘that is precisely what I have told you to do. Or weren’t you listening? Wegly-woo, you have all had a long and tiring trip thus far. I recommend a room to retiring for the knight, and the others, and we will continue said discussions tomorrow. Believe me, things will all seem better by the light of the new day.’
And with that the master full one disappeared to be replaced by the bobbing green light of before which led them to their separate, large and luxurious rooms.
That night Plob’s sleep was once again disturbed by teenage fantasies involving a skirt-less Dreenee, indoor waterfalls, peeled grapes and a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth (don’t ask). He awoke the next morning ragged and worried and more than a little guilty over the whole pig incident that took place in the previous night’s nocturnal mental wanderings. (I said don’t ask).
They were all led by the green light back to the courtyard and, true to Master Smegly’s warnings, the master magician’s masters by many had subtly changed their environ. Corridors were longer, stairs were shorter and the courtyard was now roofed over with a glittering cover of translucent mother of pearl.
The many mastered one greeted them and showed them to a large black marble table. Here they were served up a huge traditional breakfast including bacon, sausages, mushrooms (magic and otherwise), tomatoes, eggs (Scrambled, fried sunny side up and over easy, poached, boiled both hard and soft, omeletted, benedictined, florentined, stuffed, deviled, buttered, addled, dropped, shirred, souffled, nogged, in a blanket and raw). Plob avoided the bacon.
After their splendid fast-breaking meal, Master Smegly addressed the multiple mastered one. ‘Master,’ he started. ‘I spent many an hour last night pondering the import of your advice and I must admit to a modicum of concern. How do you propose that we go about our quest, what with it being of a save the world through good deeds type of thing? I was wondering would it be done via helping old ladies across the road ala Boy Scout troop manner, or are we talking a little more esoteric here, as in cross-legged contemplation and oneness with the universe? Or perhaps even riding forth with unsheathed swords, banners aloft wreaking bloody vengeance upon all doers of evil and badness?’ Smegly paused waiting for an answer.
The master magician’s yah dee dah dee smiled and nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ inquired Smegly and Plob simultaneously.
‘All of the above. But be not downcast and depressed at the seemingly unattainable nature of your quest. The knowledge and know-how lies already within all of you. In fact you have already achieved far more than you all realise.’
Master Smegly seemed puzzled.
‘Oh yes,’ continued the one of the many-mastered moniker, ‘Horgy’s victory over the spirit of Steve has helped countless people that before lived under that shadow. As we speak the pall has been lifted, former Stevarians smile and walk with a purpose. Their lives are brighter and happier, albeit they have started from an extremely low base, and now begin to have true meaning.
This, added to the hereto unheard of companionship between Trogre and human, has made a deep and happy impact on the whole area of both Strange and Steve.
Already Biggest’s brothers have decided to no longer kill humans for sport, unless they really, really feel the need, and so passage through the valley of Strange has become that much more bearable.
But do not overanalyse this quest lest you become stilted in your approach. Just do as you feel you should do and do it to the best of your ability. And now, without further ado (beedoobeedoo) - it is time for you to leave. You will find your belongings are already in the cab along with a good supply of victuals and beverages. The light will show you the way out but, before you go, I would make a gift to each of you to help in your forthcoming ordeals.’
The mastered one gestured and a large onyx box appeared on the table in front of them. He dipped inside and withdrew a long, leather-wrapped package that he handed to Cabbie. Cabbie unrolled the leather covering to reveal a two-handed broadsword sheathed in a deep blue metal scabbard.
‘Ooh,’ said Plob. ‘A magic sword.’
‘Well, not quite,’ quoth the masterful one. ‘It does stay permanently sharp and will never tarnish but, apart from that, it is to all intents and purposes a normal sword. The magic will come from Tarlek, the greatest swordsman in the world.’
Although Cabbie was less than pleased with the gift he knew it would be churlish to refuse it and he thanked the master blaster, bowing deeply as he did so.
The next gift to be produced was a golden flask that was handed to Biggest. This turned out to be a never emptying flask of Blutop; a gift which Biggest considered to be princely beyond all imagining and his thanks were profuse.
Dreenee was the recipient of an exquisitely jewelled bracelet which was both ornamental and practical as it could be used to ward off physical attack by erecting an instant shield wall capable of covering her and one other person.
To Horgy a present of a coat of shifting colours was gifted and, when he put it on, the colours shifted into a facsimile of the background causing him to be nigh on invisible, or at least very hard to see, sort of, apart from his head, and feet, and the other parts that were uncovered by the cloak. Also, it was warm.
Master Smegly was given a small cube-shaped crystal which he explained to all was a spell enhancer that could be used once to greatly expand the power of any single chosen spell.
Finally the numerously mastered master gave Plob what appeared to be a small telescope. Plob looked at it in puzzlement until the master man told him to gaze upon someone through the glass. Plob did so, holding it to his eye and looking at Dreenee. Plob went instantly bright red and then pale as his breathing stopped and his pulse went into overdrive.
‘What is it?’ as
ked Dreenee as she took the glass and looked him up and down through it. ‘You little bugger,’ she cried, spinning around and smacking Plob a ringing blow on the side of the head.
‘It’s not my fault,’ responded Plob, ducking away. ‘How was I supposed to know that it sees through clothing? He didn’t warn me.’
‘I’m sorry, master of my master’s master,’ Dreenee said. ‘There’s no way Plob can have this. Look at him,’ she gestured at the pale-faced, sweating, guilty looking teenager. ‘We can’t risk the strain on his heart. Or his head if I catch him using that pervert’s looking glass again. Anyway, he’s too young, although…’ She raised the glass to her eye once more and a slow grin spread across Dreenee’s elvin face ‘some parts of him are extremely grown up at the moment,’ she finished, arching one perfect eyebrow suggestively at Plob.
Plob’s hands flew to cover his groin and, as he went purple with embarrassment, Dreenee cast the glass back into the box with a throaty chuckle.
The master magician’s multi master laughed. ‘Never fear, good Plob. I have here a substitute gift that will more than compensate. Although I can’t be sure,’ he said staring at Dreenee and leering comically.
‘Oh bugger off, you thousand-year-old perv,’ joshed Dreenee, still chuckling. Which just goes to show that pretty girls can always get away with saying things that the most respected of men wouldn’t dare to utter. Such as joshing a thousand-year-old master magician’s masters master master, master (master?)
The aforementioned-mastered one drew a small pouch from his cloak and handed it to Plob with a fanfare and a flourish. The fanfare coming from twenty golden trumpets that had just appeared out of thin air and the flourish coming from one of the servants that was clearing up the breakfast.
‘Thank you, good master,’ Plob said. ‘I shall treasure this always. What is it?’ he queried.
‘It is a spell miniaturiser,’ explained Smegly’s master. ‘You can feed up to thirty full-size earth spells into that small pouch, it both miniaturises them and nullifies their weight (for as we all know, earth spells are extremely heavy. Or did I forget to mention that? Well everybody else knew) and, when you remove them, they revert to their actual size and weight again ready for use.’
Plob reaffirmed his thanks and turned to follow the green guiding light with his friends but, as he was leaving, the several mastered one bade him stay a short while.
‘I have one more gift for you, my young friend,’ he told the apprentice. ‘It is in the form of advice. The proof that you seek regarding your paternal grandfather does exist and, when you chance across the spell that will show it, you will then, and only then, see clearly the reasoning and logic behind his disappearance. Remember, never lose heart, and always eat at least two pieces of fruit a day to keep yourself regular. Now be off with you.’
The quest members boarded the cab and, with Biggest bringing up the rear, they set off into the future and to the second part of their quest.
Chapter 12
Bil’s newly sort-of-trained, unwashed, eager and unbelievably slow-witted troops were once again drawn up in front of him for a quick pre-battle rant.
‘You are the uncouth.’
Cheer from the troops.
‘The flotsam and jetsam.’
Cheer, cheer.
‘The detritus.’
Cheer, cheer, cheer.
‘The socially unacceptable.’
Cheer, cheer.
‘The mentally challenged.’
Cheer.
‘The ignoble and insincere.’
Cheer?
‘The scurvy, the putrid and the unliked.’
Huh?
‘The scum.’
… ?
‘But you are my scum.’
Cheer, cheer.
‘My own cohort of personal human filth and - You Are Bad.’
Huge cheers, except for some who were desperately trying to remember how to spell ‘bad’ in case Bil went in for the old give us a ‘B’ routine again.
Bil de Plummer beckoned for his lieutenants to come forward in order to have his masterful plan of attack explained in detail to them. This took about seven seconds as, true to the habit of most insane generals, (i.e. all of them) the attack consisted of a frontal assault, with maybe a pincer movement of a leftal and rightal assault if the frontal went well.
Bil pointed castlewards with his wrench screeching, ‘Chaaaaaaaarge,’ using the full capacity of his mentally unstable lungs.
The rabble ran forward waving swords, firing crossbows in the air and pushing covered rams and siege catapults before them.
King Mange’s captain of the guards waited patiently with his small detachment of fourteen skilled, highly trained, multi-talented soldiers at arms. They were all sporting the latest in lightweight, series ten, multi-swivel cross-riveted body armour and carrying a four-foot longbow complete with quiver of yard-long pitch-soaked arrows.
As the ranting, raving rabble drew closer, the captain placed a flame-full brazier in front of his archers and instructed them each to notch up an arrow and continue waiting.
When Bil’s minions had approached the two hundred pace mark, the captain raised his arm above his head. In response, the archers touched the tips of their flammable arrows to the flame causing them to burst instantly into a hot and vicious blaze. The captain’s arm chopped down and fourteen longbows were drawn and discharged. The flaming yard-long arrows traced blazing arcs overhead like a flock of burning seagulls and before they had even reached their zenith, the captain’s men had fired again, and again, and again.
By the time the first flight of flaming death had hit Bil’s unorganised barely trained rabble there were already another fifty fiery messengers of mortality on their way. The arrow storm marched through their ranks like some psychotic cremator, leaving fully thirty dead, as many again wounded and two of the precious siege engines merrily ablaze, flickering and crackling like Christmas trees at a pyromaniacs convention.
Bil sounded the run away again.
Master Smegly had decided to take the long way home. When asked why, he had explained to all that it would allow them more time to do the right things, whatever and wherever they might be.
This new route would take them fifty leagues further north leaving the mountains of Steve directly behind them as they rode through the strip of land flanked by the Sea of Tantrums and the Chasm of Brad until they would come eventually to the ruined city of Sloth where they would turn east and start their long semicircular return back home to Maudlin to confront Bil de Plummer and his minions. (No - I’m not going to provide you with a map. If you’re so enamoured with the bloody things then draw your own, you juvenile dungeons-and-dragons train-spotting anorak wearer).
At present, Horgy, being of a fiscal nature, was expressing concern to Master Smegly vis-à-vis their financial soundness as a group, notwithstanding the fact that he may be able to write off a large part of their expenditure as tax deductible. He was also worried that Master Smegly’s seemingly endless purse was, in fact, not endless and, more to the point, almost ended.
Smegly chuckled. ‘Never fear, my good man,’ he reassured Horgy. ‘To all intents and purposes my purse is endless.’
Horgy, who was a man of not insubstantial wealth himself, looked duly impressed and said as much.
‘Don’t be,’ said Smegly. ‘I have very little actual money, as such. I merely have an unlimited source of payment.’ Smegly pulled out his purse and wafted it at Horgy. It was, as he had feared, flat, floppy and well and truly devoid of coinage.
Horgy slapped his ex-accountant’s, ex-knight’s, newly-appointed-thief’s forehead and swore. ‘I knew it. We’re skint.’ He grasped Smegly’s forearm. ‘Tell me that we have money. Tell me that we’re not undercapitalised. Reassure me regarding our cash flow, or at least our ability to raise funds in the market.’
‘Sorry, Horgy,’ apologised Smegly. ‘I can do none of the above. However I can assure you, once again, that I have an un
limited source of payment. Panic not and be not overwrought for I am, after all, the master magician.’
Horgy groaned and looked imploringly at Plob, who was, in turn, regarding his master with a mixture of respect and disbelief on his honest, marginally attractive face.
‘You’ve worked it out,’ he said, addressing Smegly. ‘Master, you’ve done it.’ Plob whooped in excitement and jumped up banging his head on the roof of the cab. Smegly smiled the huge smile of the happily self-impressed and nodded. ‘When?’ continued Plob. ‘How? Is it air or earth? Tell me, tell me.’
‘Air,’ replied Smegly.
‘What are you guys talking about?’ asked Horgy exasperatedly.
‘It’s a spell,’ answered Plob. ‘Blundelberry’s eternal intensifier. Its alleged existence has been common knowledge for over two hundred years but, after Blundelberry’s death, no one has been able to actually perform it as he never left any instructions. People were eventually starting to think that it was Master Blundelberry’s idea of a practical joke.’
‘OK. But why the excitement? I mean, I’m sure it’s a very nice spell and all but, how does it help our financial strife? Unless you can turn stone into gold or such what then I don’t see how it can help.’ Horgy paused as both Plob and Smegly laughed out loud. ‘You can’t, can you?’ Horgy asked breathlessly.
Master Smegly shook his head. ‘Afraid not, Horgy old man. We mages discovered long ago that transmutation is impossible; something to do with the base memory of matter, whatever, it’s very complicated. I can, however, do the next best thing, well for our purposes it will suffice.’ He took out his wealth-free purse and proffered it to Horgy. ‘As you can see there is nil in this purse. What I would like you to do is place some small object in it for me, anything, a pebble, wood chip, something of that sort.’
Horgy called out to Biggest who bent down in mid stride and picked up a pile of stones which he passed over to him. Horgy placed three of them in Smegly’s purse. The master hunched over the purse and muttered a string of incantations weaving his hands in intricate patterns and breathing in a measured fashion. He straightened up and passed the pouch back to Horgy. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Done. Now look inside.’