Fantasy Gone Wrong

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “You misbegotten little pest!” The devil dangled his catch upside down and bellowed his ultimatum. “Fetch your Wizard down here to clean up your loose ends and restore the blight on my record!”

  “Done!” Taffire said, and recovered enough spite to land a twisting nip on the knuckles that pinned him.

  He dropped free, while his finder’s summons was allowed to ring out and slice past the gates of the Netherworld. The result called the Wizard in a shower of flame straight into the heart of disaster.

  The old man blinked once, stared about with bright interest, then chuckled with helpless glee. “Once in a blue moon, or when hell freezes over . . . a lot of bad bargains have come due, today. What else could go wrong in your kingdom?”

  “It’s your doing!” the luckless devil lashed back. “Your unruly belongings put me in this fix! I demand compensation! A full accounting for all redeemed souls, and a record of debt to square the damage to my satisfaction.”

  “For lost goods?” The Wizard snorted, unsympathetic. “Finder’s keepers. If you’re seeking for order to sort out the book’s counter spells, I teach only qualified apprentices. The ones I take on must be caring and trustworthy and proven to be of good character.” He glanced down his nose, poised a moment in thought. “I’ll consider, if you have a candidate.”

  The Lord of the Netherworld glared back at a loss. “Here? I’m a tyrant! My subjects thrive upon fear, hate, and ruin, and my legions serve for their addictive lust to inflict cruelty. The djinn are rank liars, and no imp alive volunteers for obedience!”

  The Wizard raised his eyebrows, alive with amusement. “In that case,” he concluded, “you’re screwed!”

  He retrieved his defaced book, shoved the rat in his pocket, and walked away bursting with laughter.

  IS THIS REAL ENOUGH

  Lisanne Norman

  Long time gamer and role-player, as well as historical reenactor, Lisanne finds real-life experiences very useful in her writing. Recently she relocated to the U.S.A., and is currently working on the eighth book in her Sholan Alliance series, called Shades of Gray from DAW Books.

  “For Robin and Maria, the real Tekkel and Zenithia.”

  AZIEL STOOD, HANDS ON hips, looking at the pair of charred shoes twenty yards away. “That’s it?” he demanded, a faint plume of smoke curling upward from each nostril. “That’s the best those damned mages have? Last night’s supper put up more of a fight!”

  “It’s only been ten years, Master,” whined the small hunched figure at his side. “Not even a generation since the last one tried to bind you. Needs time till one emerges as leader among them.”

  “Leader?” snorted Aziel. “That wasn’t a leader! Lately they send thieves and adventurers through the veil to steal and spy on us,” he said in disgust, stepping over the chalk circle that surrounded them and walking toward to the smaller one in the middle of the cavern floor. “He didn’t even know my name! Standards are falling when this is the best that Sondherst can send against me!”

  “He got the circles right, Master.” The servant limped hastily past him, anxious to reach the distant markings first. “See, two lines with the runes written between them,” he said frantically, trying to improve his master’s temper. Lurching down onto his haunches, Twilby pointed to where the inner chalk ring had been scuffed open and one still-smoldering shoe lay on its side.

  “And broke it when he saw me begin to materialize in my true form!” snapped Aziel. “What kind of mage is that? He Summoned me, yet he didn’t even know my name or my form!” Stopping beside Twilby, he peered down at the arcane symbols. He needed to know which summoning spell the mage had used for that was the key to returning to his own world. The glow cast by the horn lantern the late mage had brought with him illuminated the writing just enough for him to read it. Frowning, he studied the chalk symbols, but the writing was erratic and smudged, especially where the circle had been broken. A glint of metal caught his eye briefly; he dismissed it, knowing it was only the molten remains of the amulet the mage had brought with him in the hope of binding him to it.

  After a moment or two he became aware that Twilby had stopped poking nervously at the shoe and was now flicking it around with an outstretched claw tip so the vacant top was facing him.

  He aimed a kick at his minion, his boot connecting hard with the other’s loincloth-covered rump. Twilby shrieked in pain and went sprawling on his side, the charred shoe forgotten as he clutched at his rear end, massaging the stump of a tail that protruded from his grubby rags.

  “Sometimes you disgust even me,” snarled Aziel. “You’d eat anything, wouldn’t you? You’re vermin, not fit to be allowed out of the yard!” It had been his ill-fortune to be chastising one of his lesser drudges when he’d been Summoned to this realm.

  “Only looking, Master,” Twilby whimpered, wiping his streaming eyes on his forearm as he scrambled farther from his master. “Looking isn’t eating. Sondherst flesh is tasty. Don’t get it often. Usually you give me leftovers.”

  “That isn’t leftovers,” snapped Aziel, sending the offending shoe into a dark corner with another swipe of his foot. “It’s carrion! Have you forgotten where we are? The other side of the damned dimensional veil, that’s where! He may have had companions with him.”

  Twilby stopped whining and peered fearfully around the dim cavern before scuttling hurriedly back to Aziel’s side.

  “Companions, like me, Master? What we do?” he whispered, pawing at the Demon Lord’s robe.

  With a snort of distaste, Aziel flicked his clothing aside and, lifting his other hand, held it before him. A faint golden glow began to materialize in his palm. As it solidified, it rose upward, forming a small ball of light that intensified, pushing the shadows back to the farthest reaches of the chamber.

  The hollowed-out cavern was natural, and not as large as he’d first thought—the roof was a mere thirty feet above him. Scanning the walls, he saw the carved steps almost immediately.

  Leaving the globe of light hanging in midair, he strode over toward them. “Follow me,” he ordered. “And not a sound!”

  He took the stairs three at a time, glad that the late mage’s inept Summoning hadn’t forced him to complete the change from the humanoid form he’d assumed earlier in the day. In a cavern this size, to be his own natural shape would have been, to say the least, inconvenient. Thankfully, no matter what his outward form, he lost none of his abilities. Enhanced normal senses, plus his innate awareness of and ability to use magic were all that stood between his kind and the predatory Sondherstian mages’ desire for power.

  The steps spiraled steeply to his left. Ahead he could see a crack of light, like that at the bottom of an ill-fitting door. Slowing down, he took the remaining steps one at a time, head turning this way, then that as he checked the air for any other scents. All that lingered was the stale smell of the mage he’d vaporized. Placing his back to the rock face, he reached for the latch on the rough wooden door, lifting it gently before easing the door open.

  Lit only by flickering candles, the interior of the room was dim and slightly hazy, the air redolent with the stink of stale sweat and cheap tallow. He wrinkled his nose with distaste. The smell was offensive to one as discerning as him. Pushing the door wider, he eased himself cautiously inside.

  The room was empty. Small and cramped, as well as noisesome, only one door led out of it. On his left, a small window, hidden behind a rickety shutter, was the cause of the guttering candles. In front of him stood a table, scratched and dull with age, its surface cluttered with books and papers; behind it, a chair, its padding so threadbare the original color was no longer discernable. As he stepped farther into the room and looked behind him, he saw a similarly ancient sofa bearing a rumpled thin rug and almost thinner pillow. These comprised the mage’s meager furnishings.

  Almost empty bookshelves lined the remainder of the room save for where a grate of cold ashes stood, its fire obviously a distant memory. Only half a dozen tattered an
cient books remained, stacked haphazardly against each other, except for the one on the desk. Sniffing again, he detected the aroma of magic from it: it would have to wait. Despite the lack of other scents, he needed to know that he was safe first.

  “Curious,” murmured Aziel as he walked silently across the stained wooden floor to the exit door. Living in such obvious poverty was unusual for a mage, and a hedge-wizard wouldn’t have the power or knowledge, let alone the skills, to summon a Demon Lord, even if he possessed a grimoire such as the one on the desk. But what would a hedge-wizard, or a mage, be doing living in a dank cave backing onto a mountain cavern? Hedge-wizards were itinerants, earning their living by traveling the roads from village to village and performing what amounted to tricks. A very few actually had the ability to use real magic, and then only because they were the illegitimate and unacknowledged sons of real mages.

  Putting his ear to the door, he listened, sniffed, then opened it cautiously. A dark and empty corridor stretched ahead for some fifteen feet, ending this time at a stout door, obviously the main entrance.

  “Twilby, go check out the rest of this place,” he ordered, losing interest and shutting the door. “There’s another couple of rooms off the corridor out there.” Whatever the history of its late occupant, he was in no danger now—the mage, if mage he had been—had obviously lived alone.

  Returning to the desk, he slid behind it, lowering his muscular frame into the ancient chair, remembering before he did to adjust his weight. Pulling the book closer, he studied the open pages.

  “Is dangerous, Master,” whined Twilby from where he still hesitated in the doorway from the cavern. “Cannot defend myself if anyone there! Change me, Master. Make me more than I am.”

  Aziel looked up at the pathetic figure of the drudge. “You want to be more than you are?” he asked softly, his rugged features creasing in thought, as his piercing red eyes scanned the deformed scrawny frame. “Be very careful what you ask for, Twilby. I may just give you it.” The drudge’s petulant voice was beginning to grate.

  “Afraid, Master. Not strong like you. Not able to change self into form better for intimidating others.”

  Aziel raised his hand, pointed at Twilby, and muttered a short phrase in his own guttural language. A faint glow surrounded the servant, then his body appeared to stretch before suddenly shrinking.

  Twilby’s mouth opened in a soundless shriek of terror and pain as a mass of sharp hairy bristles forced themselves through the surface of his skin, growing longer and longer before finally softening and lying flat against his now elongated back. The stubby tail lengthened, acquiring a life of its own as it whipped from side to side in panic. His features, not comely to begin with, were forced outward into a muzzle as long whiskers sprouted from either side of his tiny nose.

  The transformation complete, the rat collapsed squealing to the ground, sides heaving in terror as it gasped for breath.

  Indifferent to the other’s suffering, Aziel had turned his attention back to the book. “Go. You have a shape to strike fear into the hearts of others, one more suited to your nature, just as you requested.”

  The grimoire was open at an invocation spell, one meant to call and bind one of the lesser demons. So how had this—magic user—managed to summon him, Lord of the Eight Realms, Aziel wondered? What part of the ritual had the hedge-wizard changed?

  He pushed the book aside. He’d no need of it now, he already knew the reverse spell. What he did need were the dratted mage’s notes. Without knowing the runes, he couldn’t return through the veil. Surely he’d scribbled them on some piece of parchment to take down to the cavern. Unless, in killing the mage, he’d destroyed the only record of them? Aziel sighed, his breath turning the edges of the open pages brown. Noticing the faint curl of smoke, he shut the book hastily with a thump.

  Methodically, he began to search through the pile of papers on the desk, examining each one in the hope it was what he needed. It wasn’t as simple as just substituting a more advanced spell, he needed a list of the actual runes and their positions relevant to each other within the two lines of the circle.

  Frustrated he yanked open the top drawer, then stopped, gazing down at the small crystal orb within. Now this was a find, and almost worth the aggravation that the Summoning had caused him. But just what was a Seeing Crystal doing in the midst of such obvious poverty?

  A Summoning meant that there was a task to be done, one that required more power and magical ability than the mage had possessed. What would someone as poor as this mage obviously was want done so badly that he’d risk summoning any demon?

  Aziel picked up the crystal and held it in the palm of his hand. Not a large one, to be sure, only some four inches in diameter, but it was large enough for anyone with very shallow pockets. Then he noticed what lay below it—a letter.

  Lifting it from the drawer, one-handedly he flicked it open. The faded ink made the words difficult to read. Obviously it wasn’t new, but to be placed under the crystal it had to be a letter of some significance. Sweeping the scattered papers onto the floor, he put the globe down carefully in the center of the desk. Spreading the letter out, he began to study it.

  It took him several minutes to decipher the crabbed writing. It was from The Acquirers and Facilitators Guild in Eldaglast, asking the wizard, named, he discovered, Banray, to help them locate their next Guild Master. The fee offered was an amount that was guaranteed to tempt one so poor to risk everything—but nowhere near what a competent mage would cost.

  He frowned, then the corners of his mouth began to lift slightly. So they were looking to replace the leader he’d slain several months ago, were they? More fools they for being so cheap that they hired an inept hedge-wizard.

  A tiny squeak made him look up sharply. Twilby had returned and was sitting up on his haunches not far from the desk.

  The drudge’s voice was thin and high pitched in his rat body. “Master, the place is empty.”

  Aziel nodded and returned to his perusal of the letter.

  “Writing on the other side,” said Twilby nervously.

  “What?” Aziel turned the letter over. There, hastily scribbled on the back, was a rough diagram of both chalk circles—complete with runes. He had the means to get home—and a means to relieve his boredom.

  With a gesture toward his rat-shaped minion, he turned his attention back to the crystal. “Come here. I have need of you.”

  A minute later, still whimpering with the pain of the second transformation, Twilby was crouched at his side.

  “Show me the most unlikely successor for the Guild,” he commanded of the crystal, cupping it in both hands and staring into its depths. “I will ensure that he shall be their leader!”

  He watched the swirling shapes solidify into a scene, then Aziel’s mouth widened into what, for him, approximated a smile, secure in the knowledge that no one could have dreamed that across the gulf of space, a mind as immeasurably old and devious as his regarded them with curious eyes, and slowly and surely drew his plans.

  HELL’S BARROW

  “Buffs!” yelled Hurga from his position to the rear of the small group of warriors. “Now, or ye’ll have to let the Cleric heal ye!”

  “I hear you!” said Tekkel, cranking his arm back to deliver a powered blow with his long-bladed knife at the animated mage’s corpse. As he did, three arrows, in rapid succession, whistled between him and Davon, narrowly missing his right ear, adding to the dozen or so already embedded in the wight’s flesh. “Doing my best, but this bastard just won’t go down!” He was already toiling, having taken several small injuries as they’d fought their way through to the main chamber.

  “Watch it, Jinna!” Davon snarled, glaring back at the small female standing beside Hurga. “We don’t need friendly fire.”

  The zombie uttered yet another howl of rage and pain as it lurched toward Tekkel, its dead skeletal hands groping and slashing at him. He dove to one side, barely avoiding the razor-sharp poisoned claws. />
  “Mirri, stun-shoot him, in the name of the gods!” he yelled, doing a neat forward roll and coming up behind the monster. He took a moment to glance around the rest of his party. “Zenithia, back off! You’re a Damage Dealer, you can’t take damage! Use a spell!”

  “But I like hitting them and making them bleed.” Zenithia smiled sweetly. “Spells are so . . . impersonal.”

  “Just do it, before—”

  She let out a low cry of pain as the zombie’s left hand managed to scratch her arm. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough.

  Almost instantly he heard the sounds of the rest of the group charging up their weapons’ special attacks.

  Shannar’s arrows arched overhead, most of them spent as they were brushed aside by the wight.

  “Back, sister!” yelled Mirri, letting off another fusillade of arrows that thudded into their target with dull thumps. The animated corpse of the dead mage Tallus staggered briefly, then froze as if rooted to the spot.

  “I’m ending this now,” muttered Tekkel, throwing aside his shield and pulling his second dagger. Powering up their special abilities, he flung himself at the zombie, knives flashing as he sacrificed accuracy and personal protection to double the damage with his Assassin skills.

  With a low growl of anger, Zenithia’s sword began rapidly sketching arcane symbols in the air, then she began to cast, her body straightening and standing on tiptoe as she uttered the guttural words of power.

  “Heal yourself,” Tekkel ordered, continuing to hack away at the unmoving decaying corpse. Thank the Gods of Sondherst that Mirri’s stun attack had worked, but time was running out for Zenithia. His senses strained to the limit, he heard Davon began to mutter a prayer to his diety and silently thanked the Gods the Cleric was with them.

  He glanced up at Zenithia again, seeing her beginning to pale as the poison took hold. “Zen, heal yourself!” he yelled, once again slashing at the exposed zombie’s back. “Davon! Cure her, dammit!”