“Oh?”
“Portals are very fast, sire.”
“Then let us not dally!”
A CALL FOR PARLAY
Nobody guarded the Yezanian portal after sunset because anyone foolish enough to invade the land of the werewolves in the dead of night deserved their fate.
During the day, though, Paulie assumed that someone would be there in case anything suspicious happend.
He was right.
A few guards were sitting near the entrance to the room.
Paulie flashed his amulet and explained that the humans were with him. The guards saluted keenly and stepped out of the way. Paulie felt powerful as he and the Arganian soldiers poured out of the portal building and onto the field in Yezan. The sun was piercingly bright, so Paulie quickly donned his sunglasses as they continued toward the grouping of soldiers facing them.
Bumache was standing alongside a large man that Paulie assumed was King Larkin, and he was wearing very dark sunglasses. Paulie found that amusing.
“What is the meaning of this?” King Larkin asked the approaching troop.
“I’ve come to retrieve my son,” King Tessan responded.
“Ah,” Larkin answered, tilting his head and sniffing the air. “You must the king of Argan.”
“I am.”
“And I see you brought your trusty little vampire with you.”
“Who, him?” King Tessan said, throwing his thumb back at Paulie. “He’s not mine. He just told me my son was here.”
“Seems to be with you.”
“Well, at the moment, yes,” King Tessan said. “But it looks like he’s wearing your country’s ambassador symbol, so I’d say it’s best to assume he’s with you.”
“He’s not mine.”
“Nor mine.”
Paulie was suddenly wishing that he was back in the Upperworld being fawned over again by the ladies. At least that was a mostly positive experience.
“Where is my son?”
“He’s in the church,” King Larkin said, “but you can’t go in there.”
“I’ll go where I so choose.”
All the Yezan soldiers pulled forth their swords in response.
The Arganian soldiers followed suit.
“Remember where you are,” King Larkin said. “You have, what, fifty men? I have thousands.”
“I only see about ten,” King Tessan said, looking around.
King Larkin looked back. “Well, yeah, with me. But at the howl of my voice, there will be thousands.”
“I don’t care if you have millions,” King Tessan spat back, “you have my son and I plan to retrieve him.”
“Sire,” Paulie whispered toward King Tessan, “I spoke with the members of the church. You cannot go in there. If you try, you’ll all be cut down and that will do no good for your son.”
The tension in the air was palpable.
The Arganian soldiers looked fierce in their resolve, but the Yezan soldiers were fiercer still.
It was no contest.
“Don’t push me, king of Argan!”
“Nor you me, king of Yezan!”
It was now or never.
Paulie stepped out between the opposing forces.
“I am an ambassador of the Church of Yezan,” he said with as strong a voice as he could, “and I call for a parlay!”
“Oh, man,” King Larkin said with a slump of his shoulders. “I hate those damn parlays.”
“I don’t understand,” said King Tessan.
“We have to heel until this all gets straightened out,” King Larkin replied with a groan, then he motioned to his soldiers to put their swords away.
“You’re going to listen to this pathetic vampire?” Bumache asked King Larkin.
“He called for a parlay,” the king replied with a shrug.
Stelan turned toward Paulie. “You know, I’m truly going to enjoy killing you, Mr. Vergen.”
“Excuse me,” Paulie said, stepping toward Bumache, “did you just threaten my life, sir?”
“It’s not a threat, vampire. It’s a promise.”
“I see,” Paulie said with a twitch. “Correct me if I am wrong, King Larkin, but is it not a Yezanian crime to threaten, or ‘promise,’ as the case may be, to bring harm to an ambassador of the Church?”
King Larkin seemed about to answer and then he scratched his ear…with his foot. “I’d think it would be,” he answered.
“Then why, pray tell, is this man not under arrest?”
“You’re playing a dangerous game here, vampire,” Bumache said.
“I’m not the one who just threatened an ambassador, Mr. Bumache.”
King Larkin snapped his fingers and a couple of soldiers stepped up and seized Bumache.
“This isn’t over, vampire.”
“You know,” said Paulie, “I find it terribly interesting how venomously you refer to my people. Or, should I say, our people?”
Bumache’s head snapped up and he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I should have seen it all along,” Paulie said, pacing back and forth between the two small forces. “The long, black trench coat.”
“I’m an assassin,” Stelan insisted. “It’s part of our garb.”
“Maybe,” Paulie said with a tilt of his head. “Then there was the raw meat at Hotel Gakoonk.”
“Bovine Tar Tar is a common delicacy,” Stelan replied. “Granted, it’s an acquired taste, but a lot of people choose it or they wouldn’t have it on the menu.”
“Why the dark sunglasses?”
“They fit my outfit perfectly, don’t you think?”
“You have to give him that,” King Larkin said. “They do look good with that trench coat. I mean, I’m not exactly what you would call a fashionista or anything, but I know a good look when I see it.”
The soldiers on both sides were nodding their agreement.
“Okay,” Paulie said, “what about your excellent night vision then?”
“So I was born with good eyesight,” Stelan said, but shuffled a bit.
“Hah! I didn’t know you had good night vision.”
“What are you two talking about?” King Larkin asked.
Paulie continued pacing, but addressed the king. “Sire, do you not find it odd that a human male has been the sole assassin used by Yezanian kings for nearly seven hundred years?”
“Not really,” the king said with a shrug. “Werewolves kind of get stuck in their ways.”
“Sire,” Paulie said, “he’s human.”
“Right?”
“Have you ever heard of a human living to be seven hundred?”
“You mean he’s a wizard?”
“I’m not a wizard!” Stelan said.
“No,” Paulie nodded, “I would agree that you are not.”
“I don’t understand what this is all about,” King Larkin said, sniffing the air, “but Bumache you seriously need to stay away from those spicy foods.”
Paulie chuckled and said, “Speaking of wizards, I met one on the way to Argan. Let’s talk about Hubintegler, shall we, Bumache?”
“Whizzfiddle,” Stelan hissed, making a fist.
“That’s right,” Paulie said. “Whizzfiddle. He told me everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“But he was under a CTN agreement!”
“He said he would risk charges to finally unveil your true identity.”
“What are you two talking about?” King Larkin barked.
Paulie looked at Stelan.
The assassin was rightfully terrified. For all these years he had played on the instinctual reactions of the werewolves for his personal gain, and it was all about to come crashing down around him.
“Would you rather tell him or shall I, Mr. Bumache? Or, should I say, Mr. Pegly?”
Stelan reacted as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. He looked more than ashamed.
It took nearly a minute, but he finally said, “I’m a vam
pire.”
In that moment, sound ceased to exist. The wind stopped. Insects froze. Even the world hiccuped in its rotation.
“I’m sorry,” King Larkin said. “Did you just say you’re a vampire?”
“I did,” Stelan replied.
“Stelan,” Paulie said with an evil grin, “I was only bluffing. Whizzfiddle had refused to give me any specifics. He just told me that I should do a little research on you. I had my suspicions, of course, but I wasn’t one hundred percent certain until you admitted to it.”
“Wait,” King Larkin replied and then waved his hands dramatically, “wait, wait, wait. This is not possible. Vampires are pale, eat blood, have fangs, and they smell, well, like vampires. You know,” he pointed at Paulie, “like you do.”
“Even I know this,” King Tessan said, “except for the smelling like vampires part.”
“See?” said King Larkin, pointing at Tessan. “So if Stelan’s a vampire, where are his fangs?”
“I assume he files them. It’s a common thing among travelers.”
“What about his skin? He’s out in the sun all the time.”
“Lotions,” Paulie said. “I found out a lot about suntan products on my journey here.”
“But…but what about blood?” King Larkin asked.
“That one I don’t understand,” Paulie answered. “Raw meat’s not going to fit the bill forever. I’m also left wondering how the gnomes got involved in the first place. And, of course, I’m curious how Master Whizzfiddle knows about it all and why he would agree to a CTN agreement.”
“Instead of making guesses,” King Tessan said, “why not just have the man tell his own story?”
“Yes,” King Larkin said, “tell us everything, Bumache.”
Stelan’s head drooped even further.
“I was in love,” Stelan said after a few moments of silence. “Her name was…well, that’s not important anymore as she has been gone for a very long time. Ah, but she was beautiful. I’ll never forget her long black hair and her snow white skin.”
“What happened?” Paulie asked.
“We were newlyweds,” Stelan answered. “We were on our honeymoon in Hubintegler. She had a fascination for the gnomes, dwarfs, and halflings, though I didn’t know why at the time. The night we arrived I ran downstairs from our suite to get her some flowers and learned that my timing was terrible. There had been a robbery at one of the local banks. A human, who turned out to have long blond hair, green eyes, and he had a very muscular build, was the culprit.”
“But you’ve got black hair, blue eyes, and you’re pretty slender,” said Paulie.
“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Mr. Vergen,” Stelan replied. “The police chief, a stupid little gnome, apparently thought all humans looked alike, so he arrested me for the crime.”
“Oh,” Paulie said, blinking.
“He threw me into a cell with another man,” Stelan said with a far-away look. “It was a vampire. He was drunk and passed out. I begged to be released so that I could return to my love, but they refused. I asked to at least be moved to the adjacent cell so that I would not be at risk with a vampire so nearby, but they said he wouldn’t wake up from his drunken stupor for quite some time, and they explained that vampires didn’t bite people anymore anyway…not without a Vampire Transference Agreement.”
Paulie glanced back at King Tessan and his guards, who all gave him that pursed-lip duck look.
“What?” Paulie said. “We don’t. Well, we’re not supposed to anyway.”
“Go on with your story,” the king of Yezan told Stelan.
“I cried myself to sleep,” Stelan said with a shake of his head. “I awoke in searing pain, finding that the vampire was biting into my neck. I fell into a coma for three days.”
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Paulie said with a shrug.
“Ya think?” Stelan replied with anger in his eyes.
“And so you became a vampire,” King Larkin said.
Stelan nodded.
“What happened to the girl?” one of the guards from Argan asked, to which the rest of the guards on both sides said, “yeah” in some fashion or another.
“She came to see me in the hospital a few days later,” Stelan answered. “She was brought into my room by the gnome who had thrown me in jail. He explained that they had found the real crook and then he apologized. But it was too late for that. I was now a vampire. My love recoiled at my touch and explained that she’d had our marriage annulled. I was devastated.”
“So she just dumped you?” King Larkin asked.
“That’s right,” Stelan said, obviously fighting back his tears. “The last I heard she had moved into the woods with her divorce attorney, a dwarf named Glick, and six of his brothers.”
“Don’t you read your kids a story that sounds kind of like that?” one of the Arganian guards said to another.
The other guard just shrugged.
“Didn’t you try to win her back?” asked King Tessan.
“If you’d have seen the way she looked at me when she had learned I’d become a vampire, you would understand why I didn’t.”
“I think I would have sought revenge or something,” King Larkin said.
“Oh, I did. I paid a witch to deliver her a poisoned apple, but I don’t think that ever actually happened.”
It was quiet for a while. Paulie kind of felt bad for Bumache at this point. His was a horrendous story that explained a lot about why Bumache was the way he was, not that it excused his behavior or choice of lifestyle. Still, Paulie could now at least understand it.
“Why did you come to Yezan?” asked King Larkin.
“Because I hated what I had become,” Stelan said, “and the only other race in all of Ononokin that hates vampires as much as me were the werewolves.”
“I can’t smell human on you or vampire. Actually, I don’t know what it is I smell when you are around, other than the resulting odor of spicy foods, I mean.”
“I know,” Stelan said. “Due to their guilt over the involvement in my demise, the gnomes worked to genetically alter my scent glands. They tried to mimic human as best they could, but they could never quite get it perfect. They also worked with my pigmentation and my fangs. This is why my skin is olive and why my teeth don’t grow. I have never had to file my fangs down, nor do I need any sun protection. And, as for blood, I have a self-sustaining system the gnomes installed. It’s magically regulated.”
“That’s why you needed Whizzfiddle originally and why you need Ogwern now,” Paulie said, putting the pieces together.
Stelan nodded. “The gnomes couldn’t keep the vampirism from overtaking their technology, so they hired Whizzfiddle to cast a Spell of Keeping on their work. It lasts about ten years. He was paid well to repeat the procedure every ten years for a couple of hundred years, and he was put under a CTN agreement as part of the contract. But after he learned that I was working as an assassin for Yezan, he broke his contract and left me searching for someone less morally inclined, which is the wizard Caterina Ogwern.”
“Ogwern, eh?” King Larkin said. “She’s crazy.”
Paulie recalled reading something about Mistress Ogwern in his youth. She was apparently a wizard of some renown in the Upperworld. She had quite a knack for transmorphing spells. Supposedly, she was cast out of the Upperworld for morphing people without a contract, and she was known in the Underworld for being rather ruthless to waiters and waitresses.
“So you came here and fooled me and countless kings before me into hiring you to do our dirty work.”
“Yes, sire.”
“You do realize that you’re going to pay dearly for this?”
“Yes, sire,” Stelan repeated.
As badly as Paulie wanted to feel sorry for the man, he could not. People had to deal with all sorts of setbacks and disadvantages in the world. Everyone did. Nothing gave anyone the right to ruin the lives of others.
“Now that that’s been resolved,” Pau
lie said with a deep sigh, “I will go and find out the situation with Prince Hughbarian Tessan.”
THE PRINCE RETURNS
Now, you have to understand,” said Handler Fleffy as Paulie entered the foyer, “that he’s a bit different than he was when you brought him in.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, new werewolves don’t just get their memories back, they also get their personalities back.”
“Oh,” Paulie said. “Is he a jerk or something?”
“Not a jerk exactly, no,” answered Handler Fleffy. “He’s just a bit princely, I guess.”
“Where are my servants?” Paulie heard a familiar voice call out.
It was Burt, but not Burt. The pitch of the voice was the same, but its timbre held more of a sing-song sound to it, and confidence. He sounded a lot like King Tessan.
Burt stepped around the wall and looked at Paulie.
“You,” Burt said, pointing at Paulie. “You’re the one who helped me. Paulie, yes?”
Paulie turned toward the handler. “I thought you said he got his memories back?”
“His old memories, yes.”
“A vampire? I’ve been traipsing about with a vampire?”
“Indeed you have,” Handler Fleffy said. “And if it weren’t for him you’d have never gotten your senses back.”
“Still,” Burt said. “A vampire?”
It was said with much disbelief.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Burt,” Paulie said gruffly.
“Who’s Burt?”
“You are,” Paulie replied. “Well, you were. Now,” Paulie added with his hands flapping about in a grandiose, yet mocking gesture, “you’re Prince Hughbarian Tessan.”
“And don’t you forget it, vampire.”
“Wow,” Paulie said, shaking his head.
“To think I’ve been spending this week with a vampire. I’ll never live this down.”
“At least I’m not a werewolf,” Paulie countered. “Sorry, Handler Fleffy.”
Hughbarian took a firm step toward Paulie, his eyes tight and his jaw set. Paulie shuddered a little, but held his ground. He was no match for Hughbarian, or Burt, or even Mr. Biscuits for that matter, but he had his pride.
“And you called me Mr. Bicuits when I was in wolf form,” Hughbarian said in a nasty tone.
Comedic Fantasy Bundle #1: 4 Hilarious Adventures (Tales from the land of Ononokin) Page 39