by Ira Nayman
“Yes, sir,” Malvoncellious thought, eyes cast down.
“Very well,” the dragon rumbled in their heads. “It would appear that we will work together…Bob. Let us –” The head of a black dragon poked out of the doors above and looked around. Schlomo the dragon sighed. “That’s my boss. I have to get back to the kitchen. Solomon – we will meet at the usual place one hour after sundown.”
“Yes, sir,” Malvoncellious answered.
“May I ask a question?” Blunt thought.
The dragon suspiciously replied, “Yes?”
Blunt was going to ask when he would be able to meet Jerzak Carnakhian, but with Malvoncellious looking daggers at him it suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. Improvising madly, he asked, “I – umm – that is to say – you – I mean – I’ve heard that dragons work here because the gnomes who run the place know your true names and, uhh, can control you. Is that true?”
To everybody’s surprise, the dragon made a tinkling sound that approximated laughter. “Naah,” he explained. “That’s just a myth management has agreed to spread around to keep the public from knowing the truth. The dragons who work here, well, we’re getting on in years. Our offspring wanted their turn at running things, and, in truth, if we hadn’t ‘retired,’ they would have obliterated all of us to take their turn anyway. Working here seemed like a good alternative to that fate. But, don’t spread it around, okay? It’s a little…embarrassing.”
With that, the dragon rose and made his way back to the kitchen.
“Art thou mad?” Malvoncellious asked him.
“What?” Blunt responded in his head. Malvoncellious glared at him for a couple of seconds; clearly, without the dragon as some sort of conduit, Blunt’s thoughts remained in his head. So, “What?” he repeated out loud.
“Thou darest not ask the dragon questions,” Malvoncellious insisted. “He wilst tell thee what thou needst know, or he wilst deign not. Art thou trying to get us turned into charcoal briquettes?”
“Okay, fine,” Blunt said, “but I need to find the man behind all of this, and if I need to ask questions to do so, well…” After a couple of tense seconds, Blunt smiled. “You know, that dragon sounds an awful lot like Sean Connery.”
“Who?”
“Connery. Sean Connery?”
“I hath not heard of this person.”
“Only the best actor to play the role of James Bond ever.”
Malvoncellious shrugged. “Be not so impressed – the dragons all soundeth like that.”
“Even the female dragons?”
“Indeed.”
“That must be…disconcerting.”
Malvoncellious shrugged. “You getteth used to it.”
Mitzi appeared at the table. “Can I get anything else for you gentlemen? Coffee? Dessert?” she asked.
“What would you recommend?” Blunt asked.
“Th’apple pie here doth be amazing,” Malvoncellious told him. “One bite, and thou’ll want to sleep for 100 years before taking another!”
“Umm, maybe just a coffee,” Blunt smiled. Malvoncellious, not inclined to warn him off it this time, asked for one, too. Mitzi wrote the orders on her pad and left.
“So,” Blunt observed after the coffees were set on the table, “it looks like we have some time to kill. What do people do for fun here?”
“For what?” Malvoncellious asked.
“Fun. What do you do for fun?”
“What be this ‘fun?’”
“You know…fun. Amusement?”
“Nooooo…still not getting thee.”
“Passing the time in pleasure?”
“People doth passeth the time in pleasure?”
“Okay,” Blunt, wearying of this line of discussion, asked, “how do people pass the time here?”
“You mean, other than by working the fields, tending to th’animals, making your own clothes, making food and dying slowly of painful diseases?”
“Yes.”
“I dost not know. I mean, working the fields, tending to th’animals, making your own clothes, making food and dying slowly of painful diseases doth tend to take up most of thy time.”
“Of course.” They finished their drinks in silence.
Mitzi dropped the bill on the table. “No hurry to pay,” she told them, “the dinner rush doesn’t start for a couple of hours, and, what the hell, it’s not like a working girl deserves a break…”
Blunt took one look at the bill and noticed that Mitzi had put little hearts over the ‘i’s in her name. Some disgustingly adorable conventions appeared to be trans-universal. Then, he nodded towards the gnome standing at their table. [TRANSLATION: Okay, pay the woman.]
Malvoncellious lifted his hands and looked questioningly at Blunt. [TRANSLATION: why is it my responsibility to pay the bill?]
Blunt rubbed his thumb against his first two fingers and pointed a finger at Malvoncellious. [TRANSLATION: I know how much gold is worth on Earth Prime 4-7-5-0-0-7 dash iota, and they would have had to be pretty damn small coins for you to have spent them all. Be a good chap and pay the bill and we won’t have to tell the dragon about your little deception, okay?]
Malvoncellious screwed up his face in an expression of angry resignation. [TRANSLATION: pretty straightforward, that one. Really, you shouldn’t come to rely on cheap literary tricks to tell you what a character is thinking – you’d be surprised at how much you could figure out yourself if you just made the effort.]
Malvoncellious paid the bill. He rose and said, “Come, then.”
Rising, Blunt asked, “Where are we going?”
“I doth own a cottage on the edge of town,” Malvoncellious told him. “We canst stay there until ’tis time to meet Schlomo.”
“Lead on,” Blunt dubiously commanded.
The first hurdle was the stairs. Because the investigator and wizard had been transported directly from Earth Prime to the restaurant, they hadn’t needed to climb them and, even going down proved something of a chore. After five floors, puffing appreciably, Blunt wondered – with much cursing – why some magician couldn’t have woven a spell that would automatically take them from a floor of the restaurant to the front door. Enjoying Blunt’s discomfort, Malvoncellious decided not to tell him that a sorcerer – Liefbeck the Lazy – had, indeed, created such a spell. Instead, he haughtily stated that sorcerers have more important matters to attend to.
The street was cobbled and strewn with much…muck. Let’s call it muck and leave it at that, shall we? Blunt was hit with an overwhelming stench – it was like walking into a brick wall. When he complained about it, Malvoncellious replied, “What smell?” He wasn’t being disingenuous – human beings can get used to anything. This quality can often be a curse, but it can almost as often be a blessing, as it was to Malvoncellious and his fellow citizens on this occasion.
Blunt stepped daintily around the…muck, which doubled the length of a trip that should have only taken 20 minutes. Hey! Don’t be so judgmental! – do you have any idea how much his shoes cost? Occasionally, a townsperson watched them out of a window or a doorway. Out of respect for his reputation as an evil sorcerer (much more than his record as an evil sorcerer, which was, to be generous, scant), they chose not to publicly ridicule the odd clothing of his companion. This would, however, be the source of much sniggering around dinner tables for weeks to come.
“Here doth we be,” Malvoncellious announced as they reached an area in the woods.
“Where…are we, exactly?” Blunt asked, looking around them.
Malvoncellious didn’t understand. “Home, sweet home,” he stated, reaching out and opening a door.
His cottage was a structure made of wood and mud, much like the forest around it. It wasn’t at all hidden, and, once Malvoncellious pointed it out, Blunt could see it. Sort of. More or less. The problem was that Blunt was not used to looking at things in a forest.
“After thee,” Malvoncellious swept a hand in the direction of the door. Blunt walked into the co
ttage, which was large enough for two small rooms. In the room he stepped into, there was a shabby couch, two shabby chairs and a shabby wooden table. On one wall was a shabby hanging that depicted a shabby hanging (among other atrocities). Blunt leaned against one of the walls as Malvoncellious followed him into the room. After a couple of seconds of oozing, Blunt pulled his hand out of the mud with an audible “thwump.”
“So,” he said, “do you, umm, do your evil sorcery in the other room?”
“Absolutely not,” Malvoncellious answered. “I doth have made a clearing in the glade for…that. ‘Tis important, I findeth, to maintain a distinction between the spheres of work and home, dost thou not?”
“Makes sense,” Blunt said, wiping the mud off his hand on the side of the chair he slumped into.
“Th’yonder room doth be a kitchen and washing area, general.”
“Okay. So…what is there to do while we’re waiting?”
“I…I doth own a variety of magazines,” Malvoncellious offered. “There be in actuality some interesting articles and fair in this month’s offerings.”
“Oh, yes?” Blunt responded, unimpressed.
“Oh, yes,” Malvoncellious stated. “Take Mage’s Monthly – I didst read it cover to cover! This month’s issue doth contain an article on St. John’s Bloodwort – doth what it adds to magical potions really maketh up for the fact that it doth be so bloody hard to find and harvest? Oh, and there doth also be a feature on Adirondack Malthusiaster – he hath won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Evil Sorcerers!”
“Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing,” Blunt responded.
“No?” Malvoncellious eagerly continued. “Perhaps ‘thy thing’ runneth to Reaper’s Digest, then? It doth contain a very fine article and good on the pros and cons of using bodies as compost.”
“In my line of work,” Blunt pointed out, “that would not be considered a good thing.”
“Mmm…” Malvoncellious mmmed, running out of options. “I doth have in my possession an old issue of Beat Teens – it be not mine, understand: my nephew Roderick stayed here over a couple of moon cycles ago and didst leave it. He taketh after his uncle Solomon, Roderick does. You dost know, just the other fortnight, he –”
“Mind if I ask you a question?” Blunt interrupted.
“Thou canst always ask,” Malvoncellious tried to be cheerful, but ended up more fearful.
“You live in an agrarian society, right?”
“Umm…we do?”
“Agrarian. It means that 99 per cent of your population lives on farms and considers dung beetle stew a delicacy.”
“Oh. Yes. Okay, that soundeth about right.”
“How do you come to have magazines?”
“Well…there doth be this plant called hemp,” Malvoncellious helpfully explained. “Thou doth grind it up and then doth refine its fibres. And, that doth be how they make paper.”
“Yes, yes,” Blunt impatiently agreed. “But, how can you have paper when you don’t have any proper mills? And, how can you have a magazine when your society isn’t advanced enough to have a proper printing press?”
“Oh, yes, umm, well, you see,” Malvoncellious struggled with the question until, at last, his face brightened. “Magic?”
“Magic. Right. Okay,” Blunt continued, “how is it possible for something like Moishe’s…Bagel to exist? It’s a really huge tower.”
“Ah. Yes. Well,” Malvoncellious told him. “If thou hast riches enow, thou canst quarry minerals and build structures therefrom.”
“True,” Blunt argued, “but so many other processes are needed to build a structure that’s 60 stories tall. How does an agrarian society do such things?”
Malvoncellious thought for a moment, then brightly responded, “Magic?”
“Are you going to explain everything you don’t understand,” Blunt barked, “by claiming that it is magic?”
“Dost not everybody?”
A few tense minutes oozed by.
“Sol?” a woman’s voice said from outside. “Solly? Art thou in there?”
A woman entered through the front door. She was plump, had big hands, was missing a couple of teeth, had hair that felt like straw and a braying laugh. Or, looked at by what was probably the standard of this universe: she had child-bearing hips, hands that could effortlessly milk a cow, most of her teeth, hair the colour of straw and enjoyed laughing at your jokes. By the standard of this universe, Blunt thought, the woman was likely an excellent catch.
“I hath been waiting for thee for just…ever!” the woman complained, jumping into Malvoncellious’ lap and putting her arms around his neck. Malvoncellious nodded in Blunt’s direction. “Little Polly Wolly missed her Solly Wolly, you know.”
Seeing that Malvoncellious’ rapid bobble-headedness was not being interpreted correctly, Blunt cleared his throat.
The woman jumped out of Malvoncellious’ lap and smoothed her skirt (to describe it as “peasant” would, in this environment, be redundant). “Oh,” she said. “Thou hast company.”
“Umm, yes,” Malvoncellious unhappily said. “This doth be Bob. He doth be…umm…he…”
“We’re business associates,” Blunt rescued him.
“Right. Bob, this doth be Polymorphea. She doth be the daughter of Pompadia, the man who dost own the farm a couple of acres away.”
The farmer’s daughter, Blunt thought. Oh, this assignment just keeps getting better and better. He noticed that Malvoncellious was nodding towards the door. Blunt shook his head. This just made Malvoncellious nod more vigorously. Blunt tapped his head with a finger. Malvoncellious looked at him blankly. Blunt pointed pointedly at his head with his finger. After a couple of seconds, light dawned on Malvoncellious, and his look of confusion turned to a look of sad resignation.
“Canst somebody please explaineth to me what doth transpire?” Polymorphea asked.
Glad to. “Can you please give me and my lady friend some privacy?” Malvoncellious’ first gesture asked.
“I’m not leaving you alone,” Blunt’s gesture replied.
“Oh, for evil’s sake, have pity on me,” Malvoncellious’ continued nodding insisted. “I have been away a long time, and I could really use some alone time with my lady.”
“Have you forgotten what is in our heads?” Blunt’s second gesture argued.
“I don’t understand,” Malvoncellious’ face betrayed his lack of understanding.
“The chip in my head and the nanotech in yours bind us together,” the emphaticness of Blunt’s gesture stressed. “I can see and hear everything that you do – I might even be able to feel it, as well. Do you really want to be alone with this woman that badly?”
Malvoncellious’ look of understanding conveyed the message, “Oh, I get it now. I live an accursed life.”
“I durst await thy explanation,” Polymorphea impatiently stated.
“Uhh, baby…waby,” Malvoncellious said, rising from his chair, “Bob and I doth have much business to attendeth to. If…thou couldst but wait just one more day…”
Polymorphea experienced an instantaneous ice age. “Thou art…blowing me off?” she uttered. “After all the time I didst wait for thee?”
Malvoncellious held out his hands in the cross-dimensional sign of helplessness.
“Thou canst stain thine own trousers this e’en!” she shouted and stormed out of the cottage. She slammed the door so hard, Blunt was afraid the whole structure was going to collapse, but it proved to be more sturdily built than he had imagined.
“Women!” Blunt tried to make light of the situation. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t defriend ’em on Facebook! Am I right?”
The rest of the afternoon was spent in silence.
After a quick dinner of takeout moss ball soup and beelf knishes (Malvoncellious had lost his concern for Blunt’s digestive system), the pair set out for their meeting with the dragon. Malvoncellious quickly led Blunt deep into the forest as the sun set and darkness settled
(sooner or later, everybody and, apparently, every thing settles) in. Blunt slapped at the back of his neck and removed the remains of a tiny blue creature that seemed to be feeding off his hair. He heard a sound that was a cross between the shuffling of a deck of cards and the buzzing of a light bulb about to enter the final phase of filament burnout.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Thou durst not want to know,” Malvoncellious told him.
Soon after, he tripped over something; if he hadn’t righted himself at the last moment, he would have ended up face down in alien dirt. “Oh, do tryeth and keepeth up!” Malvoncellious barked at him. If he hadn’t been so busy trying to catch his breath, Blunt would have put Malvoncellious in his place with a withering retort.
Although his eyes were getting used to the dark, Blunt couldn’t see much beyond his immediate vicinity. Something appeared to move in the shadows to their left. Something big.
“Is something watching us?” he asked.
“No doubt,” Malvoncellious replied.
“Should we be worried?”
“If comfort thou dost take in worry,” Malvoncellious said, “knock thyself out.”
Walking through the forest reminded Blunt of all of the summers his father would take him camping in the wilds of southern Ontario. This, in turn, reminded him of all of the summers he begged his father not to take him camping in the wilds of southern Ontario. In vain, of course: his father was convinced that nature was the only proper setting for father/son bonding. Clearly, somebody should have spent more time watching Oprah.
A couple of minutes later, Malvoncellious stopped walking. “We hath arrived,” he announced. To Blunt, the gloom seemed a little less murky; otherwise, there was little to mark this place as any different from any of the places they had walked through. Of course, that meant there was no reason to believe that this was the wrong place, either. Slapping at something at the back of his neck, Blunt felt his head start to throb.
Blunt asked, “How long do we wait?”
“Until Schlomo doth arrive,” Malvoncellious told him.
“How long will that be?”
Malvoncellious sighed impatiently. “In a world that doth not contain timepieces,” he pointed out, “one must needs be flexible about –”