Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story

by James Maxstadt

  The three of us, four if you count Sarge cleaning up the ruins of his desk, stood and stared at Wulftin.

  “Well, yes, okay then,” Lilly said. I almost chuckled. This was the first time I ever saw her at a loss for words.

  “Am I needed here any longer?” Raven asked, his voice cutting through the awkwardness.

  “You’re never needed anywhere, Raven,” I piped up, earning a glare from Lilly.

  “You don’t have to stay, if you want to go,” Lilly said. “But if you hang around you might learn something, and be of some assistance when we know what we’re doing.”

  “Then, for you, I will stay,” Raven replied, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. The funny thing was, I had no doubt that he meant it simply as a show of respect to Lilly. With most guys, I’d be watching them like a hawk after a comment like that, but I honestly believed he meant no harm.

  “Good,” she said, “Now, Wulftin thinks he has an answer. Go ahead, Wulftin.”

  I flinched as she said that.

  “Yes, yes. Well. Lilly has told me of the conundrum facing the city. That of the exploding birds and their unfortunate habit of goading others into setting them off, as it were. The problem, as I see it, and as I’m sure you do also, although I’m sure I shouldn’t speak for you, you may have other views on the subject, is that when they die, they explode, causing great harm and damage. Well, die may not be accurate. We’ve yet to see one simply die. In every case that has been witnessed, the bird has been killed, struck down by some outside force, such as your gun, Mr. Grandfather, or the troll who tried to consume one. In any case, considering their ability to annoy and enrage those they encounter, it seems likely that no matter how many public service announcements are disseminated, there will still be those individuals who will cause the birds harm, thus causing them to explode, incurring harm to themselves, their loved ones, or others simply in the area. This, as I see it, is the problem.”

  That was a whole lot of words to explain exactly what we already knew.

  “Yes, Wulftin,” Lilly said, a tiny hint of impatience entering her voice. “We knew that already. The question is, how do we get rid of them, or how do we kill them without having them explode? That’s what you said you might have an answer for.”

  “Ah, yes. I see. Well, the short answer is that you can’t. Not kill them without having them explode, anyway. I see no way of accomplishing that. As far as getting rid of them, I’m afraid any method, such as employing trained hunting falcons against them, would either end in the same result, or simply drive them off for now, only to have them return later. No, I’m afraid what you ask is simply impossible in this particular set of circumstances. What we must do is find a way to limit the damage when they do, inevitably, explode.”

  “But can you do that?”

  “Why…yes. That is…yes.”

  He seemed slightly put out at being held to such a short answer.

  “Then let’s go,” Lilly said. “Duke, Raven, come on. We might need you if this is anything like I think it might be.”

  We left the watchhouse, watching the sky, and checking signs and other possible perches. I was sure that finding one of these things was going to be fairly easy, since I had seen so many. But Capital City was a big place, and when they had the whole city to spread out in, they weren’t as obvious as I thought they would be.

  We had been wandering around for about an hour, Raven and I occasionally exchanging barbs and being shushed by Lilly, and still saw no sign of any of the birds.

  “Forget this,” Raven said. “I’ve got better things to do than wander around half the city.”

  He started to walk off when Wulftin, peering into the sky, said, “Would it help, do you think, if I tracked one?”

  Lilly and I looked at each other.

  “Wait,” I said. “You can do that?”

  “Yes, well, I mean, theoretically. I’m not entirely sure it would work, and as I mentioned a short time ago, that is one of the primary focuses in getting a spell to work the way you would like it to. But, I also have a strong suspicion that the method I’m thinking of may in fact work, and therefore, any slight sign of success would boost my confidence that I was, in fact, correct, thus leading to a greater chance…”

  “Wulftin,” Lilly interrupted. “We don’t need the whole explanation. But if you can track one of these things, please do it.”

  “Of course,” he said, and stepped aside. He closed his eyes, bowed his head and then began chanting in a sing-song kind of way, his voice rising and falling. After a moment, his hand reached into a pocket and he pulled out a feather, which he tossed into the air in front of him. The feather wafted slowly toward the ground, but then stopped, as if an invisible hand reached out and grabbed it. Then, it began to revolve slowly, rising further up as it did. When it was even with Wulftin’s head, it turned until the shaft was pointing away from him, and started to move forward. Wulftin walked slowly along behind it, allowing it to lead him.

  It turned and twisted, making its way through the winding city streets, until it finally halted. I realized where we were; right back at the watchhouse, where we started over an hour earlier.

  “Are you joking?” Raven said, but at that moment, we heard the harsh croak. It was distant, coming from far overhead.

  Looking up, I saw them. There were three of the black birds, flying in a circle over the watchhouse. I watched them, a thought nagging at my mind, that this scene seemed familiar somehow.

  Then it occurred to me. “Lilly, what does this remind you of?”

  She watched the birds for a second or two, and then I saw the recognition in her face as well. “The tower. The Death Knight’s tower. These are the birds that were circling it.”

  “Yeah, I think they are. But what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But it they’re associated with him, then they’re bad news.”

  The four of us stood, watching the birds circling high in the air.

  “Did you see that?” Raven said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Open your eyes, Grandfather. One of them just disappeared.”

  There were now only two birds soaring in the sky. But where did the other one go? As I watched, another winked out of existence.

  “What the…?”

  “Huh,” I heard Wulftin say. “They must be going into that gate up there.”

  We all dropped our stares and looked at the wizard, who continued to watch the remaining bird, his hand shielding his eyes.

  After Wulftin made his announcement, I went into the watchhouse and asked Sarge to come out. Neither he, nor the two other Watchmen that he summoned were able to see anything other than the birds in the sky. As we watched, three more popped into existence, and then several more came and went. While none of us could see anything, Wulftin was adamant that there was some sort of gate in the sky that they were flying in and out of.

  It soon turned out that as we watched them, the birds were watching us. There was a sudden brief rain of droppings, some of which hit their mark. While I wasn’t pleased with their accuracy for myself, I did have to grin when I saw the pure disgust on Raven’s face as a splatter marked his black-clothed shoulder.

  “A rain of shit for pieces of shit!” One of them flew down closer, swooping overhead and taunting us.

  Wulftin moved faster than I ever would have given him credit for. His hand darted into his pocket and came out with a clear glass marble. He held it aloft and cried out an unintelligible word. I saw Lilly’s mouth gape in surprise, and assumed she recognized it.

  Around the bird a clear bubble formed in midair. The bird kept flying, but when it hit the side, it bounced back, stunned, and fell to the floor of his prison with a croak.

  “Mr. Grandfather,” Wulftin said, “would you be able to shoot the bird with your wondrous weapon? The shell should hold him in place, but still allow for the passage of something that is not actually alive.”

  He
kept his hands elevated as he spoke, but started lowering them slowly. As he did, the globe in the sky moved closer to us, bird and all.

  “With pleasure,” I said, and pulled my Ultimate Weapon from my belt.

  But as I started to aim, I noticed that the bird wasn’t looking very good. He was getting puffy, his feathers standing up.

  “Oh, crap…” I started to say, but was drowned out by the enormous bang as the bird exploded.

  We all picked ourselves up a few moments later, ears ringing and eyes watering. It was bad enough that it exploded, but the energy also escaped Wulftin’s spell. He took the brunt of the blast and lay unconscious a few feet away.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Lilly moaned as she climbed unsteadily to her feet. Raven muttered something under his breath.

  Raven and I picked up Wulftin and got him inside. After a few gentle slaps and some water, he started to come around.

  “Well”, he said. “Now we know. Even impeding their movements can cause them to explode. A fact that is good to know, even if in the learning of it we suffered a slight setback. Still, that shell that I conjured should have held back the force of the explosion. You see, since the bird is organic, and the shell is designed to contain any organic material, my assumption was that the…”

  “We get it, Wulftin,” I said. “But now we need to know what else we can try.”

  “Save me from intellectual eggheads,” Raven muttered. For once, I secretly agreed with him.

  A short time later, we sat in the watchhouse, upstairs in one of the libraries that made up the wizards’ section. There was a long, highly polished wooden table, piled high with books, scrolls and papers of all sorts. We needed to move some to the side to see each other as we sat down.

  “Well,” Lilly began. “We know that we can’t kill them, and we can’t trap them, or else they’ll explode.” As she spoke, we heard another explosion off in the distance. “And in the meantime, these things are doing a lot of damage to the city.”

  “If only we could close that gate,” Wulftin said wistfully. “Then the ones that were left here would be trapped. Possibly cut off from the source of their power. At that point, they may revert to being no more than simple birds. But that’s a mere pipe dream at this point. The gate is throwing off an incredible amount of dark magic, too much to be countered by my magic, or anyone else that I know of in the Watch.”

  We all sat and waited for him to go on, but for once, Wulftin appeared to be satisfied with what he said, and sat staring at the table in front of him in silence.

  “Wulftin,” Lilly finally said, “what do you mean by dark magic?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. My term for the branch of wizardry that is more concerned with the realms of death and the hereafter. Not that I consider the practitioners of such magic to be dark wizards, you understand. No, that would be giving in to stereotypes. Instead, I merely mean it as a descriptor of sorts, one that…”

  “You do know that I’m a necromancer, right?” Lilly said. Interrupting Wulftin when he was getting wound up was becoming a normal part of conversation. He didn’t seem to mind, which made me think it happened to him quite often.

  He stopped and regarded Lilly.

  “Why, that’s right! You are! My, how did I overlook that? Why then, you should be able to shut the gate down, assuming you could get close to it. If you’re strong enough, that is, and I’ve heard tales of you, Lilly. Now that I suddenly remember. Oh yes, I believe you have the necessary power.”

  “But if it’s Death Magic, why can’t I see the gate? I should be able to, shouldn’t I?”

  “One would think,” Wulftin replied. “However, part of the magic is hiding itself. I can only see it due to my third eye.”

  Again, Wulftin dropped a statement into the middle of a conversation that would normally require a half-day’s worth of explanation, and then moved on as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  “You have a third eye?” Raven asked.

  “Well, not a physical one, as such, no. It won’t open in the middle of my forehead or some such. Wouldn’t that be a sight! No pun intended, I assure you. No. Instead, what I mean is that I was born with an ability to see certain things that remain hidden from others. My Solstina Day presents were never a surprise to me, and my friends refused to play hide-and-seek with me, since I always knew exactly where they were. I could see them, you understand, whether they were around the corner, or behind a barrel, or in another room entirely. So, while the gate that is allowing the birds entrance to our city is invisible to most others, to me, it stands in the air as a gash in the fabric of the sky.”

  Well. That was a new one on me. And while I could see how his ability to see hidden things would be very useful to a Nuisance Man, the thought of not being able to turn it off gave me the shivers. Some things are best left unseen.

  “We have two problems then,” Lilly said. “I can shut the gate down, supposedly. But I can’t see it, and I can’t get near it. Where does that leave us?”

  “Nowhere,” I said. “From what I can tell, we’ll have to try to kill as many of these things far away from anyone else, or anything important, as we can. What else can we do?”

  There was silence for a few moments as we each thought of various ways of doing this. For me, it meant having to be a pretty good shot to take the birds out from far off. Lilly could do the same, I was sure. But Raven? Him, I wasn’t sure about.

  “I suppose I could get you up near the gate,” Wulftin suddenly said, with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I could make a floating disc. It’s a small spell, usually. Useful for getting the sugar bowl down from a high shelf for your tea, perhaps. But I believe I could make a bigger one. One that would support you enough to get you to the gate. Then, if all things remain as we think they are, you could shut it down, Lilly.”

  “That’s great!” she said, but then. “But, no, that won’t work. I still wouldn’t be able to see it.”

  “And you’d be unprotected,” I chimed in. “Which means that’s out of the question. Unless you can make the disc big enough to hold the two of us.”

  “Theoretically, there should be no limit to how large a disc I make. You see, it’s simply a matter of visualizing…”

  “Three of us, then,” Raven said. “I’m going too.”

  “For what?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “Those things fly around fast, and who knows what else will come out of the gate. While Lilly is shutting it down, I’ll help you protect her.”

  “Why are you doing this, Raven? What’s in it for you?”

  “It’s my city too, Grandfather. Besides, even if I don’t understand her horrible taste in partners, I happen to have a great deal of respect for Lilly.”

  This was getting weird. Maybe I really did need to keep my eye on him, after all.

  “That’s settled then,” Lilly said. “You’ll float the three of us up there, Wulftin, and Duke and Raven will keep any nasties away from me while I do what I can to shut down the gate. But, you still haven’t answered how I’m going to see it.”

  “Oh, well, that’s not hard. I’ll have to be with you. If I maintain close contact with you, with all of you, you’ll be able to see it. Again, the ability is one that I was born with, innate if you will. But by an application of magic that I developed some time ago, I’m can share my sight with others, to let them see what is hidden as I do. Therefore, when we near the gate…”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What happens if you get hit and knocked out or something while we’re all on this floating disc thing of yours?”

  “Oh, well, I imagine that we’ll plummet to our deaths. Yes, I would think a fall from that height would certainly be enough to kill us. Most unfortunate, of course.”

  In the end, we couldn’t come up with a better idea. In the course of our conversation, we heard no fewer than another three explosions from around the city. In spite of all the notices being put out by the Watch and
the NHLF, people were still attacking the birds in anger. If anything, the frequency of them was getting more, not less.

  We left the watchhouse, with Sarge promising to keep any lookee-loos away, and watched the birds circling overhead. There were several of them now, flying in a spiral, some disappearing, others popping into sight, and yet others leaving to flap their way to different parts of the city.

  Wulftin took out a flat, circular metal disc and placed it on the ground.

  “Mind your toes,” he muttered, and then started chanting in that same sing-song way I heard him use before. The disc started to expand, flowing outward, and becoming larger. We all stepped on to it when it grew large enough.

  Without stopping his spell, Wulftin gestured, and we rose smoothly into the air. I grabbed a hold of Lilly’s hand, and felt someone grab onto my shoulder. Raven’s face was whiter than normal, and his grip on me was like iron.

  “Fear not,” Wulftin said, “the spell is working perfectly. Whoops.”

  The last was when the disc stopped rising and dipped down quickly, causing us all to lurch. He began his spell again, and we climbed higher into the sky.

  The birds began taking an interest as we approached them. They flew around us, spewing insults and curses like a ship full of drunken sailors. But none of them approached too closely, seeming unsure of what to make of the humans floating in their realm.

  Wulftin’s tone changed and the disc stopped rising. Still chanting, he reached out and touched Lilly, then myself, and finally Raven. His touch was like fire, or ice, that blazed in my head. It was hard to think, and my vision blurred.