by Defendi, Bob
Each time, it dodged to the right.
Damico smiled. To Hell with the game. The game wasn’t getting him anywhere.
On the next attack, Damico didn’t plunge in with his sword. Instead, he feinted for the minotaur’s back then shot to the right, falling to hands and knees.
Omar swung in with his ax. The minotaur, already moving as if they both attacked, shifted to the right, its great hooves catching Damico in the ribs with a cracking sound, then tripping over, crashing to the floor.
Omar didn’t miss a beat. He moved after the minotaur, his ax high, bringing it down with a wet meaty thump. Omar pulled the ax clear, trailing a streamer of blood in the process, then brought it down again, burying it with a car door sound.
Carl must have been using some bizarre sound effects tape in the game.
Damico tried to move, but pain exploded through his torso. He whimpered and fell.
“Stop your whining,” Omar said. “You only took twenty points of damage.”
But it hurt. The pain of the broken ribs radiated through his chest, aching and throbbing, twisting with the torque of every move. He’d broken an ankle once teaching another kid daredevil acrobatics. Another time, he’d put a fist into a car window during a crash. Neither of them hurt like this.
Lotianna appeared at his side and reached down, gently catching the arm on his unbroken side. She smelled of lilacs, and her hands felt cool as she helped him to his feet. He gave her a grateful smile.
She winked at him with those Zoe McClellan eyes as she slid under his arm, helping to support his weight. He seemed to be the same height he’d been in the real world, maybe six foot two. It felt the same to have a woman under his arm at any rate.
“Thanks,” he said with a strained smile.
“Lean on me,” she said back.
He somehow resisted taking that as a song cue. Pain could work wonders for damping the jokes.
Arithian was on his knees with Gorthander now, whispering spells—no, singing spells. Damico perked up. “Wait. He’s a bard, right?”
“Yeah,” Lotianna said.
“That means he has healing spells.”
“You ever know a bard that didn’t select healing spells?”
Damico smiled as Omar tromped out of the room, searching for something.
Arithian cast another spell, then another. The blood stopped spurting into the air. Then Gorthander twitched. He gasped and reached for his chest.
“Welcome back, dwarf lord,” Arithian said.
“Shut up and let me finish the job,” Gorthander said with a groan. Then he laid a hand on his own chest and cast a spell of his own.
His hand glowed white, and his chest lit up in response. Damico limped toward them, Lotianna supporting him. The dwarf’s skin knit, visible through the rent in the armor. Finally, the dwarf stood.
He gave Damico the once-over. “You hurt?”
“Only about twenty hit points, but I could use a heal,” Damico said, trying to sound like a gamer at a table, not a real person in real pain.
Gorthander stomped over to him and said another prayer, his hand pulsing with healing light. He reached out and touched Damico. The warmth of the magic flowed into him. Damico’s bones wrenched, then crackled together. The pain became heat, merging with the warmth of the spell. Then it vanished completely.
He didn’t want to remove his arm from Lotianna’s shoulders, but he couldn’t think of a reason to keep it there, so he dropped it to his side. It might have been his imagination, but he thought she looked disappointed as well.
He’d seen healing spells used in a hundred games. He’d written them and described them in games he’d run. He’d even, on occasion, tried to convey the pure wonder of the effect. None of that held a candle to what he’d just experienced.
It was a miracle. To a character in a high-magic game, it might be commonplace, but to Damico… It took weeks to heal broken ribs, even with the best medical attention. Just like that, they were knit. Just like that.
This game might not be real, but it was real to him.
“Uh, thanks,” Damico said.
The dwarf kicked the dead minotaur. “Back atcha.”
Damico glanced at the door. Omar had gone back the way they’d come. There were no other doors out of this room.
“You learn how to trip someone like that on the schoolyard?” Gorthander asked after Arithian explained how they’d defeated the minotaur.
“It works better with bullies,” Damico said.
“I see.”
“Should we loot the body or something?” Damico asked.
That was usually the next step in these games.
“Yeah. Let’s,” Gorthander said.
They had just knelt at the body when Omar came back in, his face a dark cloud. Damico frowned and exchanged glances with Gorthander. “What is it, big guy?”
“The door,” Omar said. “It was supposed to open when we killed him, right?”
“Right,” Gorthander said.
“It didn’t.”
Chapter Nine
“…”
—Bob Defendi
raldolf stood on a hill overlooking a village, a black velvet mask on his face, his hair oiled and neatly curled, his clothes perfect. Around him stood humans, more dog than man—and lapdogs at that. They sniffed and begged and preened for his attention. It was amazing he didn’t have to bat them away from his rump.
Below him, on the edge of the village, his walls of metal and muscle he called guards, the guards called men, and the villagers called “sir,” stood waiting for the order. They were a coiled spring ready to sprang, a charged bullet ready to fire, a mother-in-law about to check your ironing.
In other words, doom itself.
“What is their crime?” Hraldolf asked.
“They are late on their taxes, your majesty,” one of the lapdogs said. He was a short man with a bald head he compensated for with furs that made him look like a small beaver.
“A grievous error, my lord,” said a second lapdog, this one long and lanky, who wore a spangled coat and tights that showed off the line of his legs. He resembled a cross between a dancing girl and a disco ball.
Hraldolf nodded and contemplated the village. “What was their excuse this time?”
“A long winter, Your Majesty,” Beaver said.
“The spring crop went in late, they say,” Legs said.
“I see.”
The men strained below him, almost chugging with their need to rush in and slaughter the villagers. Hraldolf watched them in a disconnected way. A fly buzzed by him, met his gaze, and despite the mask, dropped dead. Flies are perceptive. Probably something to do with compound eyes.
Beyond the men, the villagers had gathered in clumps outside their homes. A pall of anticipation hung over the settlement, but they hadn’t panicked yet. They never panicked until he ordered the attack. He’d never wondered if that were strange before.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“The mayor begged for mercy,” Beaver said.
“He said they finished harvesting the crop yesterday. They are ready to pay their taxes now.” Legs smiled a bemused smile.
“Fine,” Hraldolf said. “Kill them.”
Discipline had to be maintained. The people had to know who was overlord here. It was the way of things. It was the way of command. It was the way of evil.
And Hraldolf was an evil man.
The troops started forward, tromping more like moving statues than men. They made the offensive line of the 1976 Oakland Raiders look like a ballet recital of eight-year-olds. They tromped through fields and underbrush, walked through fences in a shattering of boards and flying splinters. One didn’t bother with gates when one was built like a cab-over truck.
Now the people reacted, panicking in tightly packed groups. They ran even as the soldiers drew their swords, but the soldiers didn’t pick up pace. They marched forward re
lentlessly.
Hraldolf frowned.
Something tickled at the back of his mind: an idea. He’d never had an idea before. His mind had seen about as much activity as a parking garage with no street access. This wasn’t because he was stupid—he was far from stupid, his mind was simply a muscle he’d never used.
The thought sauntered around the empty halls of his intellect, admiring all the room, checking out the view and the walk-in closets. Then it settled in and decided to make a home.
Hraldolf twitched.
“Wait,” he said.
His voice didn’t need volume, his whispered word carried all the impact of a comet.
The soldiers stopped.
“Your Majesty?” Beaver asked.
“Walk through this with me, will you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“They didn’t pay their taxes.”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“But they can pay them now.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And the only reason they are late is because of the weather.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Which they can’t control.”
“No, Your Majesty.”
Hraldolf stared in confusion. “Now, Beaver—”
“My name isn’t ‘Beaver,’ Your Majesty.”
“I never would have guessed. Now, Beaver, I’m as evil as the next man.”
“More evil, Your Majesty.”
“But it seems to me they haven’t actually done anything to defy me.”
“I suppose you could come to that conclusion, Your Majesty.”
“Because it’s the truth?”
“Well, you could say that, Your Majesty.”
“So basically we’re wiping them out for no reason.”
“You always have a reason, Your Majesty.”
“But I need to buy things.”
“I believe that was the reason, Your Majesty.”
Hraldolf regarded the little sycophant and shook his head. If ever there was a time to kill a henchman, this was it. Still, he needed to focus. He was on to something here. Something important. Something that could redefine villainy as the world knew it. Something groundbreaking.
Wait.
“Beaver…”
“Not Beaver, Your Majesty.”
“Fine, Not Beaver…”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I wipe out this village, they’ll never pay me taxes again.”
Not Beaver blinked three times and looked at Legs. Legs’s face screwed up in effort as if he tried to wrap his head around that, like a stoner who’d taken one too many hits to make it through Trig class.
“I… I suppose not, Your Majesty.”
Hraldolf shook his head. Why had he never seen this before?
“Collect the taxes,” he said, turning away. Then, “Don’t hurt them.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
And Hraldolf wondered why, for the first time in his life, he actually felt alive.
Chapter Ten
“See?”
—Bob Defendi
is name was Jurkand. Don’t blame me; his mother had issues.
He sat in the whorehouse, waiting for his go upstairs. Jurkand liked money. And whores. Money and whores were both nice. Preferably at the same time. Hopefully, there would be enough of each that when he was done with the one, he’d still have something left of the other.
Jurkand wasn’t the deepest pool in the park.
He sat there, counting his gold as he sipped an ale someone had dyed pink. He didn’t wonder who could dye ale pink in a medieval society. He certainly didn’t wonder if the ale would give him cancer, and that was a mistake. Whorehouse or no whorehouse, pink ale wasn’t natural.
So Jurkand sipped at what—if he was lucky—was merely lead-based ale and stacked and restacked his coins. As he waited, a group of girls came down the stairs and lined up like a cattle drive. Jurkand lifted his head. It was his turn.
The room was done in the same tasteless lace one expects from the boudoir of an over-the-hill sexpot. Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to pollute me.
There were pink walls and pink upholstery. The room was decorated at an expense that would have bankrupted a French king, but Carl didn’t have the best grasp of medieval economics. Candle chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Perfume cloyed the air. In one corner, a western gentleman complete with six-shooters banged away at an antique piani. I’m sorry you had to see that.
I’ll spare you a description of the whores. You might get adult-onset diabetes.
Jurkand stood up and walked through an invisible line in the room, the line between Damico and that Artifact I’m not supposed to tell you about. He stopped in shock.
Suddenly, something inside him opened, changed. Everyone else in the room passed back and forth through this line but didn’t seem to notice. Jurkand did, though. Jurkand had the qualification of being the most perceptive person in the world.
That wasn’t exactly ringing praise.
Jurkand dropped the coins back into his belt pouch along with his other treasures, five paper clips, and something he couldn’t identify: the cap of a pen. He watched the whores and frowned.
“Honey,” said one of the whores. “Are you coming?”
Jurkand shook his head in confusion. “I’m… not in the mood.”
“Honey, you’re always in the mood.”
“That’s just it,” Jurkand said. “I’m not.”
But he’d always gone with them anyway.
Jurkand stumbled out of the door and into the street. He stared right then left, his eye drawn to the perilous dungeon that was just up the hill from the village proper. Something was happening.
Jurkand squeezed his eyes shut and tried to examine what had changed. He could feel… passions inside him now, conflicting thoughts and desires. They pulled him one way and another. He loved his mother. He hated her as well. He loved the whores, but they disgusted him. He loved the ale, but he loathed the hold it had over him. He loved money but… no, he just loved money.
He’d never felt like this before. No, that wasn’t true. He’d felt like this, but he’d never noticed. Before his feelings, his desires, they’d been locked off from the rest of him. They’d been there. He’d simply paid them no heed.
He needed a word for this. Maybe a phrase. He needed to make this wonderful feeling concrete.
And then he had it, suddenly, without any further thought. This was the thing that had been missing from his life, all along. This was the core of being, the heart of Humanity and what he needed, what he’d always needed. What he’d never had.
“Free will,” he said.
Something in the world changed. No matter what, he had to make sure it didn’t change back.
Chapter Eleven
“Never end a chapter with a false cliffhanger.”
—Bob Defendi
n the distance, the sound of a door echoed through the halls. Damico headed in that direction.
“Hmm,” Gorthander said, kicking the minotaur. “This one must have taken time to die.”
They looted the body, and Gorthander found a pouch. Out of it, he pulled handful after handful of gold while Omar searched the bare room. Scowled at Damico.
“You got ranks in Search?” Omar asked.
Damico started to tell him to shove off, then he remembered his character was a thief. “Prob’ly.”
“Then get off your fat ass,” Omar said.
Damico shrugged and searched the room as well. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it seemed he didn’t have to. His hands caressed the walls as if they knew what to do. His eyes seemed to track the lines of the stone on their own volition. His head moved back and forth, catching cracks and crevices from different angles. It was strange, like watching a movie in his head but without the man in the sixth row chatting on a cell phone.
Well, not chatting on a cell phone at least.
Damico glanced at Omar and gave him his best “don’t mess with me” glare. The kind one got from mafia hit men, hockey enforcers, and old women at bingo games. Then he went back to his searching. After exactly ten minutes, he pushed a stone, and a door next to him opened with a rumbling sound.
It moved out of the wall slowly, connected at one edge. Still there was no visible hinge, although there should have been. In addition, no scrapes marred the floor, or the seams, no tool marks at all. Damico rolled his eyes and stepped inside.
He found a ten by ten by ten cube of a room. Inside lay a large chest overflowing with platinum and gems. A small bag sat on top, as if placed delicately. Positioned around the chest lay two axes, a sword, a mandolin and a staff. All of them shimmered slightly in the darkness.
“Well, what have we here?” Omar said, smacking his hands together and rubbing them.
“Seems like Carl thinks he’s Monty Hall,” Damico said.
“Or Monty Haul,” Gorthander said with appropriate carrying gestures.
The pile of gold was knee high now, the pouch it had come from the size of a fist. “Is that minotaur carrying around a few thousand gold in its pouch?”
“Seems like it,” Gorthander said.
“Is it a magic pouch?” Damico asked.
“Nope,” Gorthander said.
They pulled out the treasure. Damico handed the staff to Lotianna, the mandolin to Arithian, and took the long sword himself. Omar took the ax that suited him better and tossed the other to Gorthander.
“What do you think?” Omar asked.
“I think Carl is trying to outfit us for a quest.”
Omar laughed a dark, ugly laugh. Damico wondered if Carl had passed that along verbatim. He probably had. It was just the kind of lame joke that, when coming from a GM, Carl would think was clever and charming.
Damico picked up the pouch and opened it. Inside, he found eleven tiny plastic laser guns, the kind that came with Star Wars action figures. And a white sock. Just one.