“If I’d come for her, she would already be mine,” said the shadow of death.
“If not for Nessy, who have you come for?” asked Echo. “Margle?”
The shadow frowned. “Alas, his soul remains beyond my reach for the moment. But I can afford to be patient. No, I’m only here as an observer for the moment. It has been perhaps too long since any interesting demises in this place. There is a balance to this universe, and Death herself sent me to see if everything was in order.”
He smiled again, and the carnivorous chrysanthemums folded into themselves. Hungry vines retracted into the ground.
“If I should deem it necessary, I, as her authorized agent, shall correct that. But there are so many interesting souls to be found here that I must admit I’m having a bit of trouble with my selection.”
“Ach, have we nah enough troubles without ye here, poking about?” asked Thedeus. “Since when does death feel the need to make house calls anyway?”
“You’re upset. I can understand that. It is your nature to fear me, but rest assured, I only do as my mistress demands.”
The shadow faded.
“Get back here, ye coward!” shouted Thedeus. “I’ll send ye back to yer mistress with a story to tell!”
But the shadow didn’t return.
“What are we going to do, lass?” asked Thedeus.
“What can we do?” Nessy replied as she started scrubbing away the chalk. “It’s death. We can only wait and hope for the best.”
***
Sir Thedeus had never been the hopeful type. Hope had always seemed the last refuge of the powerless, and under normal circumstances, he would’ve agreed that there wasn’t much they could do against Death herself.
But Margle had cheated death, in a fashion, and Nessy had escaped her grim clutches. Among the castle’s cursed artifacts, there must have been something to deal with a shadow of death, and he resolved to find it. He dug through one of the many magical laboratories. It was organized in a way that only a mad wizard could understand. Swords and potions and enchanted amulets lay strewn about on tables and shelves.
He struggled with a shimmering battle axe that he couldn’t lift.
“I don’t think Nessy would like us doing this,” said Echo.
“The lass is too practical for her own good.” he replied. “She has enough to deal with already. We’ll take care of this problem ourselves. Now help me.”
“I don’t have a body.”
“Ye have eyes, don’t ye?”
“Actually, no.”
“Well, ye can still see, can’t ye?” He put his ear to a blue potion. Something inside the stopped clay vial growled. “How do ye see anyway?”
“Ask Margle. What are we looking for?”
“Yazbip says it’ll be a twisted staff, likely made of bone, with a white gemstone set on top.”
“Yazbip is advising you? There’s no way this can go horribly wrong then.”
“He’s a capable wizard.”
“Since when do you believe that?”
“Since he agreed to help me put death in its place. Now quit yapping and help me find it.”
Echo sighed. “This is against my better judgment, but I think it’s over here.”
Thedeus perked up. “Where, lass?”
She whistled until he could find her. “Aha, that must be it.” He clambered up the staff gleefully.
“I don’t know. That gem is yellow, not white. And the staff is made of wood.”
“Ach, ‘tis close enough.”
He undid the clasp on the scroll tied to his body and unfurled the document. “Now all we have to do is say the magic words, and it should draw death’s shadow right into it.”
“Won’t she just send another?”
“Then we’ll capture that one too,” he said. “And the one after that. And the one after that. We’ll capture all her shadows if we have to.”
“This is a really bad idea.”
“Have some optimism, Echo lass. Even if it dunna work, it canna make things worse.”
Thedeus perched atop the red diamond and read the incantation aloud. As he read, the gem warmed under his feet and leaves sprouted from the staff. Echo thought of interrupting, but often interrupted magic was the worst kind.
A warm wind howled through the laboratory, and Sir Thedeus’s voice boomed in thunderous cadence. He dropped the parchment but kept reading. The blank expression on his face confirmed that the magic had taken control.
The hot air burned Echo. She didn’t know if it was the magical nature of it or her lack of a body, but it felt like her mind was burning around the edges. She screamed as the not-quite-pain nibbled at her exposed being.
It faded away. Sir Thedeus stopped incanting. He blinked himself alert.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Perfectly fine.” He tapped the cold gem under him. “Do ye think it’s in there now?”
“It can’t be that easy.”
“Optimism, lass.”
Cracks appeared in the gem as it leaked plumes of green smoke in the air. Thedeus flew to a table on the opposite end of the room. The gem shattered into dust, and the staff grew larger and leafier. It sprouted two legs, a twisted wooden arm, and a head with tangled vines for hair. The rasping vaguely feminine figure fell to one knee.
“Is that a dryad?” asked Echo.
“Another of Margle’s cursed prisoners,” said Thedeus. “If nothing else, at least we’ve freed her.”
The dryad put her hand on a table and pushed herself to her feet. Grass and flowers sprouted from the table where she stood.
“Easy now,” said Thedeus. “Yer free now.”
The dryad stared at him with the empty knots where eyes should be. Half-laughing, half-shrieking, she ran from the room, knocking over tables and potions in her mad, aimless dash. Everything she touched sprouted thick grass and strange flowers, and even after she’d disappeared (though her shrieking could still be heard), the greenery continued to grow up the walls and all over everything like a ravenous emerald hunger.
Echo said, “I think we just made it worse.”
Sir Thedeus flew after the crazed dryad. She wasn’t hard to find. The castle’s echo made it difficult to locate the shrieking, but all the wild plants sprouting in her wake led the way.
“What are we going to do when we find her?” asked Echo. “Shouldn’t we consult Yazbip?”
“There’s no time,” he said. “He’d probably only screw it up.”
“I’m not sure he’s the one to blame.”
“Ye dinna need to blame yerself, Echo lass. Ye never claimed to know anything about magic.”
She grumbled. “You’re too kind, Thedeus.”
They found the dryad in one of the smaller libraries. There were a half-dozen of the studies, containing the books Margle had deemed unimportant enough to not be in the main library. The one-armed dryad stood hunched in the middle of the room. She wheezed as leaves fell off her body. Her graying bark peeled away.
The firefly in a jar on one of the shelves said, “Most interesting.”
Thedeus ignored the firefly, a powerful demon in cursed form. Actually, hundreds of fireflies spread throughout the castle.
“I don’t think she’s feeling well,” said Echo. “Is she dying?”
“She’s not truly alive in the first place,” answered the firefly unbidden. “Dryads sometimes shed their limbs and enterprising wizards will sometimes transform those into magical staffs. If the wrong magic should somehow come in contact with the staff, it’ll take on a semblance of life, but it’s only a semblance. It never lasts long.”
The dryad collapsed and fell silent, unmoving.
“Well, that takes care of that problem then,” said Thedeus.
“Oh yes,” said the firefly. “I assume you have someone fetching the death orchid now.”
“Ah, yes, the orchid,” said Sir Thedeus. “I’m sure there’s one around here someplace.”
“Don’t tel
l me you forgot the death orchid.”
“We dinna expect this to happen.”
“We weren’t prepared,” said Echo.
The grass and flowers continued to sprout, covering the dryad and the floor in a mossy overgrowth.
The demon firefly chuckled. That could only be an ill omen.
“Oh, well, then. In that case, you should probably run along before she . . . oh, my. That was faster than I expected.”
The mound split open as four mrigendra, crosses between a ferocious feline and mandrake root, spilled out. Their bodies were lumpy and covered in dirt and roots. One had a mane made of grass. They raised their heads and shrieked with an earsplitting wail.
One of the lionesses sniffed the firefly’s jar, but she flared the wicked fire on her tail. It backed away, growling.
“They’re no danger to me or the bodiless one,” she said, “but I can’t say the same for you, bat.”
The creatures eyed Sir Thedeus. They licked their mouths with the thorny vines of their tongues. He flew from the room, and the growling beasts gave chase.
“How do we stop them?” asked Echo.
“Why should I tell you?” said the demon.
The study was covered in creeping plants, spreading to every surface.
“Because if you don’t, the castle could fall into disaster.”
The grass growing on the desk curled around the edges of the demon’s jar but shied away from covering her. “I rather like disasters. It’s in my nature.”
“But if this castle is overrun with plants, who will you torment? The daffodils?”
The demon bobbed. “That is an excellent point. Would get rather dreary after a while. Still, I can’t just tell you how to fix this. That’s also against my nature. Oh, I know it’s inconvenient, but we must bargain.”
“You can’t have my soul.”
The firefly flew in clockwise circles. “Why does everyone assume their soul is so valuable? There are billions of souls out there. What’s so special about yours?”
“What do you want then?” asked Echo.
“Is it truly so difficult to guess? What do you, a bodiless poet, have to offer me? What is your only worthwhile possession in this world?”
“I can’t agree to that,” said Echo.
“Well then, I guess dreariness is our future unless Nessy, the clever girl, cleans up this mess. She’s rather good at that.”
Echo sighed. “Very well. But only if you promise me this’ll work.”
The demon laughed. “My dear, dear empty lady, if you can’t trust a queen of the pits, who can you trust?”
***
The mrigendras chased Sir Thedeus through the castle, their horrible screeches filling the air. The lioness at the lead would spring with deadly grace and swipe within inches of swatting him from the air.
“That’s it, ye great dull beasties!” he shouted. “Follow me to yer doom!”
With the monsters nipping at his wings, he led them. His worry that the mrigendras might get distracted by easier prey proved groundless as most of the residents of the castle were very good at hiding from the more terrible things that might lurk about. They had plenty of practice.
He flew into the bestiary. It wasn’t his favorite place. He could tolerate the upper levels, where the less horrible things were caged. The menagerie of rare and magical creatures howled, hooted, and roared as Thedeus and the mrigendras continued their chase between the cages. Thedeus flew through the bars of his chosen cage, and perched atop the head of the monster within.
“Haha.” He fluttered his pointed ears and smirked at the mrigendras snapping at the cage bars. “Dinna think ye could catch me that easy, did ye?”
The chimera under him shifted, but didn’t wake from its nap.
“Ah, come on now. Get up, ye lazy abomination.”
He nipped at its hairy lion head with his pointed teeth. It brushed at him with one paw as the snake that was its tail hissed in annoyance. The snake struck, but Thedeus nimbly flew aside, and the serpent buried its venomous fangs into the chimera’s goat head. This shocked the dragon and lion heads awake, and all of them snarled at Thedeus who dove back and forth across the dragon’s head. Its snapping jaws came dangerously close to swallowing him whole, but he was just a touch faster. The mrigendras strained against the cage, batting with their thorny paws as Thedeus played a dangerous game of dodge.
“Ye canna catch me, ye stupid beasts. Ye know what ye have to do.”
The dragon exhaled a gout of fire. Thedeus swooped to safety, but the mrigendras went up like dry kindling. They ran around in shrieking panic, but the area around the chimera’s cage was fire-proofed for obvious reasons. They burned into harmless piles of ash in very short order.
The chimera’s goat head bleated at Sir Thedeus, who watched from a safe perch.
“Me thanks to ye, creature.”
The monster roared once then curled up in its cage and went back to sleep.
Fortune the black cat, who had been lounging, undetected, in a shadowy crevice in the wall, said, “You shouldn’t have done that. It’s bad luck to burn mrigendras.”
“Ah, I dunna believe in luck. Now if ye’ll excuse me, I still have a shadow of death to deal with.”
“This way,” said Echo. “Quickly.”
Dodger the weasel came scampering in behind her (or maybe in front of or beside her) with a packet of seeds tied around her back.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
Thedeus flew down to Echo’s general direction. “No need to worry, lasses. I’ve handled it.”
“What did you do?” asked Echo.
“I solved the problem.”
Echo groaned. “You burned them, didn’t you?”
“T’was the simplest solution.”
“You aren’t supposed to burn them.”
Fortune stretched. His long tail swished back and forth. “Told you.”
“Do you still need these?” Dodger held up the seed pouch.
“I don’t know. We were supposed to feed them to the mrigendras, and they’d become harmless.”
“They canna get much more harmless than they are now,” said Thedeus.
A breeze picked up some of the ashes as they swirled in miniature cyclones. The cyclones merged, growing larger and more powerful.
“Ye gods, I hate magic.”
“Can we get Nessy now?” asked Echo before the wails of the eight foot tall ashen tornado became too loud to be heard over.
Nessy shouted the incantation over the howling whirlwinds. This was the third time she’d had to do it. The first time, she’d been too close, and they’d drowned her out. The second, she’d been too far away, and the spell hadn’t found its target. This time, she was just right, and with the final magic syllable, the tornadoes lost all their energy. In their dying moment, they spewed ash, covering Nessy, the nurgax, Sir Thedeus, Dodger, the walls, ceiling, and floor with a layer of grime.
“Well done, Nessy lass.” Thedeus, perched on her shoulder, coughed and sputtered.
“Yes, well done,” agreed the demon firefly in her jar. Though it wasn’t her voice she used, but Echo’s. Borrowed for a few days as price for the knowledge of the seeds that hadn’t done Echo any good. Echo herself could’ve been anywhere, but Nessy assumes the voiceless, bodiless poet was nearby.
“You should really have known better,” said Nessy.
The nurgax shook the grime from its wings, and growled in a low and disappointed tone.
“Ach, we were just trying to help,” said Thedeus.
“I didn’t start it,” said Dodger. “I’m just here because Echo needed someone to carry the seeds.”
Fortune the cat, who had somehow managed to avoid getting covered in ash, licked his paw. “And I didn’t do anything.”
Sir Thedeus glanced at the mess that had been made. It seemed like half the castle was in disarray. Bits and pieces were strewn everywhere. A suit of armor had been knocked over, scattering into pieces. The beast
s in the menagerie were still creating a racket that could be heard from halfway across the castle. A painting of a lake had fallen off its wall to lay upside down, its cursed resident up to his knees in water. Grass was continuing to grow out of many crevices in the brickwork.
“T’was not my greatest triumph,” admitted Thedeus, “but it all worked out in the end.”
“Yes, aside from the mess and the inconvenience and the fact that you didn’t actually do anything about the shadow of death, I’d say it was a complete success,” said the demon with a chuckle.
“I appreciate what you were trying to do,” said Nessy, though it was a strain of even her near legendary good nature to keep from snarling a bit as she said it. “But next time, perhaps you should consult with me beforehand.”
Thedeus grumbled to himself. It was as close to an apology as he would come.
Death’s shadow came floating out of the darkness.
“Hello, Nessy,” he said.
“We dinna summon you, shadow,” said Thedeus.
“If I waited to be summoned, I’d be far less busy than I am.”
Thedeus was about to say something else, when Nessy gently shushed him.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.
The shadow smiled inscrutably. “Indeed. I think after what I’ve seen today that you’ve no need of my special attentions. You earn your lives, every day, I see. But then again, doesn’t everyone? But you have a castle to tend, and I should be on my way.”
“Good day then,” said Nessy.
The shadow pulled his pale cloak around himself and with a slight bow, he vanished.
“Did ye hear that?” asked Thedeus. “He left because of what we did. So in a way, we saved the day.”
“In a very selective way,” agreed the demon.
Nessy patted him on his head. “I suppose we can’t argue with the results. Now help me tidy up this mess.”
“Tis me pleasure, lass.” He struggled to carry a gauntlet that was far too heavy for him, settling for dragging it noisily across the stone floor.
Nessy chuckled to herself before picking up the gauntlet and the bat while getting back to work.
###
WORK ETHIC
Robots versus Slime Monsters Page 7