by Ira Nayman
Blunt had just walked into the lab. “Sorry, Doc,” he said. “There was a tie-up on elevator three.”
“Yes, yes,” Doctor Alhambra testily responded. “That’s not my concern. Stand over there, please,” he motioned to a red ‘x’ in a circle on the floor. Blunt walked over and stood on top of it.
“Now, magic-boy,” Doctor Alhambra turned his attention to Malvoncellious. “I imagine you are quite angry at getting caught and being brought here and made to drink a foul, thoroughly vile concoction – note my word order – yes?”
“Verily,” Malvoncellious responded, “thou hast no idea.”
“And, I am certain that you have imagined all manner of torturous revenge,” Doctor Alhambra ventured. “Am I right?”
Malvoncellious nodded.
Doctor Alhambra took the twig taken from Malvoncellious’ apartment out of a pocket of his smock and tossed it at Malvoncellious, who was so surprised that he didn’t catch it. While he stooped to pick it up, Doctor Alhambra said, “Knock yourself out.”
“In truth?” Malvoncellious, confused, asked.
“Verily, even,” Doctor Alhambra assured him.
Malvoncellious turned on Blunt. His first impulse was to go with a Cruciferous Commandment of Crucifixion. But, no, that would be over too quickly. He eventually settled on Majister’s Ensorcelment of Suffering. It wouldn’t be quite as effective without preparing a mud doll whose limbs he could repeatedly twist and hack off, but it would be effective enough. Squaring his stance in the traditional manner, Malvoncellious raised the wand and pointed it at Blunt. Before he could even begin saying the spell, however, fire rode up and down his spine and blew the top of his head off (figuratively – we’re not, after all, barbarians here).
Doctor Alhambra wrote something on his clipboard.
“Very good,” he said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, please do that again. Only this time, try a different spell.”
The agony abating, Malvoncellious spat out between gasps of breath, “What…what didst thou…do…to me?”
“What, that?” Doctor Alhambra brightly responded, “The concoction most adjectival you drank? It contained nanobots that immediately fused with your spine all the way up to your brain. When they detect a pattern of waves in your brain that indicates that you are about to do something evil, they activate the nerves in your spine in a most painful manner.”
“Thou hast ensorceled me!” Malvoncellious shouted.
“If that makes it easier for you to understand, sure,” Doctor Alhambra stated. “Now, please, again, with a different spell.”
“And the pain?” Malvoncellious asked. “Wilst it come once more?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out!” Doctor Alhambra impatiently told him. “Have you no concept of the scientific method? Really? None at all?”
Malvoncellious turned towards Blunt, not nearly as eagerly as the first time. He thought that if he could find a minor spell, the pain might not be as great. But, what? Losing the keys to your front door? Being unlucky in love? At last, he settled on having a large wart grow on your nose. But, before he could even raise his wand, the pain, just as great, left him screaming in agony on the floor.
“Okay,” Doctor Alhambra said, writing on his clipboard. “Shall we try this one more time?”
“N…n…n…” although the pain was already receding, Malvoncellious couldn’t speak, so he vigorously shook his head.
“Subject has asked that testing be terminated,” Doctor Alhambra announced. “I will determine that…yes, okay, we have enough data to draw conclusions from –”
“What…” Malvoncellious gasped, slowly pulling himself up from the floor, “what manner of…of…of sorcerer vile dost thou be?”
“Sorcerer?” Doctor Alhambra, offended, proudly pulled himself up to his full height. “I am no sorcerer. I, sir, am a scientist.”
Malvoncellious wanted to say that they had a lot in common. He wanted to tell Doctor Alhambra that, under different circumstances, they could probably be fast friends, sitting in the Overcast Orb, trading secrets about torturing the innocent and complaining about the quality of the mead. Unfortunately, he was in no condition to articulate these thoughts. What he did manage to say was: “Not…so…different.”
Disgusted, Doctor Alhambra turned to Blunt and said, “He’s all yours.”
“Uhh, actually,” Blunt responded, “I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions before I left?”
“Sure,” Doctor Alhambra said. “Doctor Richardson?” Doctor Richardson got up and walked over to Malvoncellious. Putting a shoulder under one of Malvoncellious’ arms, he helped the mage walk out of the room.
“Look,” Blunt cut to the chase, “his magic doesn’t work in our technological world, right?”
“Right.”
“So, what guarantee do we have that our technology will work in his world of magic?”
“None whatsoever,” Doctor Alhambra cheerily agreed. “I do so love experimentation in the field, don’t you?”
When this seemed not to satisfy Blunt, Doctor Alhambra pointed out that the memory of the pain he had experienced in the lab would probably keep the magician from trying anything funny – by which he meant nasty – in his own world. This cheered Blunt up considerably. Doctor Alhambra added that, thanks to the nanobots in Malvoncellious’ brain, the chip that Blunt had implanted in his brain (required of all Transdimensional Authority personnel who traveled between realities) would allow him to monitor the magician’s brain. In case they were separated, this would allow Blunt to see and hear everything that Malvoncellious was doing. (In the magical realm, this was the functional equivalent of Endor’s Enchantment of Entanglement, but without the effect on the tides.)
“Umm, couldst thou please removeth thine eyewear?” Malvoncellious requested, breaking into what had turned out to be Blunt’s flashback.
“The shades are part of the uniform,” Blunt informed him.
“Umm…yes, I…doth appreciate that,” Malvoncellious said. “Only, people dost not wear Raybans in this universe, and thou art attracting attention most unwelcome.”
Blunt reluctantly, but decisively removed the glasses, which revealed his watery brown eyes, and pocketed them. “Okay,” he exposited, “now, remember, the cover story is that I’m your contact on the other Earth. I’m here to scope out your operation and meet with the man in charge so that I can negotiate the terms of smuggling the Home Universe GeneratorTMs into my universe with him directly. Is that clear?”
“And,” Malvoncellious nervously added, “we shan’t mention the whole ‘taking over the planet’ fiasco?”
Blunt sighed. “As long as you cooperate, I see no need to -”
A short, bearded figure waddled up to the table.
“Hello,” it said in an old, hoarse voice, “my name is Mitzi, and I’ll be your server toda – hey! Sol! Vus machtse?”
“Greetings, fair Mitzi,” Malvoncellious shyly responded.
“Long time, no see,” Mitzi said.
“I wast away on business,” Malvoncellious mumbled.
“Who’s your friend?” Mitzi, relentlessly friendly, continued.
“Bob,” Blunt introduced himself. “You know, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re a…umm…a…”
“Good looking woman?” Mitzi finished for him, thrusting her chest out to emphasize an appendage that was, on a woman her height, ample.
“Well, yes, of course, that, too,” Blunt stumbled all over himself. “But, I was thinking, erm, more along the lines of a…you know…a…”
“Gnome?” Mitzi offered.
“Well, yes.” Blunt gratefully agreed.
“What of it?”
“Oh, ah, it’s not that I have anything against gnomes,” Blunt, clearly not comfortable with this line of conversation, continued. “In fact, if I had ever met any, I’m sure that we would have been the best of friends. It’s just that, when I think of…gnomes, I never really think of them as being…you k
now…Jewish.”
Mitzi laughed. “Oh, bubbelach,” she told him, “you’d be surprised at how far the Diaspora has spread!”
Blunt smiled. “Yes,” he mused, “I suspect I would.”
“So,” Mitzi took a pad out of an apron pocket and a pencil out of her curly mop of bright red hair and asked, “can I get you something to drink?”
“Methinks a coffee will suffice, thankee,” Malvoncellious said.
“Sounds good,” Blunt said. “I’ll have a –” he stopped when he noticed that Malvoncellious was shaking his head. “Uhh, no, on second thought, coffee puts my arms to sleep. I’d like –” Blunt consulted the menu, “uhh…mugwump juice?” Malvoncellious’ eyes grew bigger and he emphatically shook his head. “No…no, I’m not feeling very…mugwumpish today. You know what, I think I’ll stick with water.” Malvoncellious breathed a sigh of relief.
“Alrighty, then,” Mitzi said, writing in a big, scrawling hand on her pad. “Are you ready to order food?”
“Oh, ah, sorry,” Blunt said. “Can you give us a minute? I haven’t really looked at the menu.”
“Sure thing, darlin’,” Mitzi responded. Holstering her pad and pencil, she waddled back to the kitchen.
“We shouldst order some victuals,” Malvoncellious stated. “T’would look suspicious if we sat here and partook of nothing.”
Blunt reluctantly agreed. He looked at the menu as though it had been written in a long dead language that had never been spoken. Although he was loath to admit it, he had never been in a delicatessen before; in fact, his culinary imagination didn’t encompass much more than the steak and chips mash at The Elliptical Garter Snail. Trying to be nonchalant, even though the menu was Glessopotamian to him, he casually asked, “So, what would you recommend?”
“Ah, now, thee canst not go wrong,” Malvoncellious told him, “with a nice steaming bowl of moss ball soup.”
“Moss ball soup?” Blunt dubiously asked.
“Good for whatever doth ail thee,” Malvoncellious assured him. “Chicken pox, cow pox, weasel pox, adder pox, a pox on both yon houses – it really doth wonders work.”
“Hmm…I hear good things about corned beef,” Blunt tried, “maybe I should –”
“Beelf,” Malvoncellious corrected him.
“I’m sorry?”
“That be not corned beef. It be corned beelf. And, it be nasty. I wouldst stay away from it, were I thee.”
“Moss ball soup it is then,” Blunt decided and placed his menu on the table with a loud thump. Mitzi appeared next to the table before he even knew she had left the kitchen; if he hadn’t known better, Blunt would have sworn that she had teleported there. She took their orders (Malvoncellious had the paella, a rice dish with various meaty and fishy ingredients that are best left unnamed unless, of course, they are moving; and we have already established what Blunt was having) and left again.
“Alright,” Blunt said, “when do we meet…umm…”
“Schlomo?” Malvoncellious prompted.
“Yes.”
“There the dragon be,” Malvoncellious stated, nodding in the direction of a pair of hinged doors high on the far wall through which a snout poked. The dragon that emerged was about 10 feet long. It had the body of an eel, a long, thick eel that floated languorously through the air. Scales on the upper half of its body reflected light in brilliant shimmering pinpoints. The dragon’s body ended in a thin triangular tail. It had thick lips, above which lay several wispy whiskers, and eyes that darted this way and that, missing nothing in its environment. Oh, and it was blue, Gigi Blue, a shade native to this universe.
Watching the dragon move across the room was like watching the fish in a tank from the bottom – without the inconvenience of drowning.
“It has no hands,” Blunt, mesmerized, commented.
“S’truth,” Malvoncellious, not immune to the dragon’s hypnotic qualities, quietly agreed.
“How…?”
“Watch.”
The dragon wore a harness that dragged a cart along the floor below it. It stopped above a table a family of four had recently vacated. The dragon opened its mouth, inside which a fire could be seen to be building. It did not, however, spit the fire out; instead, it let the fire grow in intensity until it was white hot. This sucked the oxygen out of the air in front of its mouth. A vacuum was thus created, causing the table cloth and all of the used dishes and cutlery on it to gently rise into the air. With a slight nod of its head, the dragon nudged the table cloth and accoutrements over the cart, and allowed them to gently drop into it. When he was certain that everything had landed in one piece, the dragon languidly moved on to the next table.
“That was…” Blunt started, awe-struck.
“I knowest,” Malvoncellious agreed.
“Here you go, gentlemen,” Mitzi broke the mood by dropping their drinks on the table. “I’ll be back with your food in a couple of minutes.”
“Shouldn’t you let it know we’re here?” Blunt asked, all business again.
“Oh, HE doth know we are about,” Malvoncellious responded. “Dragons doth be creepily sensitive that way.”
“Okay. When are we going to meet it?”
“After HE hath bussed the tables, HE wilst take a break,” Malvoncellious advised. “T’will be then that we will meet HIM. HE. HIM.”
“Why are you stuttering?” Blunt inquired.
“One canst not be too subtle with some people,” Malvoncellious commented under his breath.
“Okay, that’s one moss ball soup,” Mitzi said, putting the food on the table a couple of minutes later, “and one paella. If you need anything else, just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and –”
“Thank you,” Blunt interrupted the gnome. “We’ll be sure to do that.” The bearded lady at the circus had always weirded him out.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, the blue dragon, out of its – sorry, his harness, floated towards them and hovered over their table. “Solomon,” it thought at them in a deep, rumbling voice with a hint of a burr, “good to see you’re back. I trust the 12 gold pieces I gave you to cover your expenses sufficed.”
“It didst, indeed, more or less,” Malvoncellious noncommittally thought. By which he meant: more. Much more. He had only needed to convert two of the coins to live quite comfortably. Gold prices in that other universe were insane. Really; if he hadn’t been so intent on taking over the world, there were fortunes to be made in the gold trade. But, ahh, no need for the dragon to know any of that.
“Good. Good. You were away longer than I expected…”
“I…didst have trouble finding the right person.”
“Hi,” Blunt interjected aloud. “My name is Bob, and I –”
The dragon ignored him. “There are no thieves in the dimension I sent you to?”
“‘Tis not that,” Malvoncellious explained in thought. “Verily, th’world you sent me to was full of criminals, from the lowliest street cutpurse to embezzlers in the highest offices of the land. But, ahh, it didst take me time to find somebody who the proper…skill set for the job didst have.”
“Hmm,” the dragon said. There was a world of meaning in that syllable, but it wouldn’t stamp a visa on Blunt’s passport to allow him to enter. Eventually, the dragon turned its gaze on him. “So, Bob,” it rumbled, “how do you feel about butterflies?”
“Butterflies?” Blunt said out loud.
“Thou dost have no need to vocalizeth,” Malvoncellious thought at him. “Merely think what thou desireth to say, and we shall hear it in our heads.”
If this had been a dimension of science, the direct mind-to-mind communication could have been explained by saying that the computer chips that had been implanted in each of their brains contained miniature transmitter/receivers that allowed them to communicate sub-vocally. How the dragon had come to have a chip implanted in its brain would, of course, require its own explanation. However, Earth Prime 4-7
-5-0-0-7 dash iota was a universe of magic, and magic requires no technical specs.
“Oh,” Blunt thought. “Okay.”
“So,” the dragon prodded him. “Butterflies – thoughts?”
“Butterflies are…pretty enough,” Blunt answered. “In their place. However, their place really isn’t in a business deal.”
“I see. What do you do if a youngling scrapes its knee and comes crying to you?”
“I tell it to go get comfort from its mother.”
“I see. And, how do you feel about the Treaty of 1342 between Gerrick of the western woods and Piotr the Indifferent?”
“I’m not from this universe, so I don’t know anything about it.”
“Hmm,” the dragon hmmed thoughtfully. There was a pause. A really long pause. A pause long enough to do your nails in. A pause long enough to rehearse Oklahoma! in. A pause long enough to listen to Seth Rogen read War and Peace on audiobook in. Or, so it felt to Blunt. It was probably only a couple of seconds, but it took all his willpower not to sub-vocalize something. Like…a question…
Eventually, the dragon psychically asked, “So…Bob. How did you come to arrive in this dimension?”
“Travel between dimensions?” Blunt answered. “Piece of cake! I’ve been smuggling goods between dimensions for years! Right under the noses of the Transdimensional Authority.”
“Stupid Transdimensional Authority,” Malvoncellious muttered.
“Well,” Blunt defensively responded, “I wouldn’t go that far…”
“They really art a bunch of incompetent dumbasses, art they not?” Malvoncellious, realizing his advantage, gleefully continued.
“That’s one man’s opinion,” Blunt psychically huffed, not happy at the direction the conversation was taking.
“Know not their volcanoes from a hole, black in the ground. Wouldst thou not agree? Hunh? Wouldst thou -”
“ENOUGH,” the dragon quietly roared in rebuke (the negation, not the city in Virginia). Malvoncellious immediately sobered up. “Solomon, you must always respect your enemy. Eviscerate him, certainly, but always with all due respect.”