“So?”
“So this film is to be seen by the people on our world, not yours, ye goofy Fate!”
“Watch yourself, little man,” Aniok warned sinisterly. “I could transport you into the belly of a dragon with a snap of my fingers.”
Heliok cleared his throat, silencing them both like a parent who had just interrupted two siblings having a spat.
“All is well here?” he asked.
“Not really,” said Misty, not bothering to look up from the papers she was holding, “but it never is when Corg is around.”
“What’s that?” Corg said.
“He’s rather exacting in his requirements,” she said, though not directly in reply to the question. “It’s what makes him the most sought-after producer in the business.”
Heliok took the papers from her hand and set them down. Fate documentation was not intended for non-Fate perusal. He glanced at what she’d been reading and saw it was his monthly itinerary. Then he blushed slightly upon seeing that his annual colonoscopy was listed on the schedule, two days after his physical.
“If he’s so sought after,” Heliok said, trying to deflect any thoughts she may be having, “then why is he working with a network that’s tanking?”
“Because no one else will work with him,” she answered. Then with a glance toward Corg she added, “I mean, he gets more creative control this way.”
“Or I’m after supposing to have control, anyhoo. Working with this lot is worse than dealing with first-years.”
“I’ve had about enough of you and your—”
“Aniok,” Heliok interrupted gently, grabbing his subordinate by the elbow, “we need this done right.”
“We need what done right?”
“The filming.”
“Want me to take over, then?” Aniok asked with a snide look at Corg.
“No, sorry. I’m leaving Mr. Sawsblade in charge. You will report to him for the duration of this quest that he’s filming.”
Aniok’s look changed abruptly. “What?”
“You heard me correctly, I’m afraid.” He brushed at his shirt. “Also, Lornkoo and Mooli will be reporting to him. You may tell them I said so.”
“But, Heliok, he’s not a Fate. He’s a lower lifeform. An Ononokinite. He's a bloody Dwarf!”
“Nothing gets past you, Aniok,” Heliok said dryly.
Aniok put his fists on his hips. “I’ll go over your head with this.”
Heliok stepped aside and motioned for Aniok to pass on through to Kilodiek’s office.
“Feel free, Aniok,” he said. “I just left his office a few moments ago, and he was resolute regarding how this was to be done without fail. Now, if you’d like to tell him that you’d prefer to be in charge of the end product, win or lose, I shall not stand in your way.”
Aniok’s fists dropped and he gulped.
“So you were sayin’ that this guy is my new boss?”
“For now,” Heliok answered.
“Right.” Aniok turned to Corg, defeated. “Whatcha need me to do, boss?”
IN A BOX
Pilk often forgot to knock, so when he came bouncing into Kwap’s office unannounced, and carrying a large box, all Kwap could do was sigh and back away from his work.
“What’s in the box?”
The Ogre wasn’t the brightest of chaps, but he was nice. Now, it may sound counterintuitive for a mob kingpin to keep nice henchmen on his payroll, but Kwap wasn’t your typical boss. He liked balance. Someone such as Blaze could be ruthless, so having Pilk along with him would ensure that Blaze couldn’t get out of hand. Conversely, someone like Pilk was a pushover, but with Blaze along that could spell doom for the person pressing the Ogre’s buttons.
That was Kwap's theory, anyway.
“Der’s a note fing,” Pilk said, gingerly removing an envelope from the side of the container.
“What does it say?”
“You wamme read it?”
“Please.”
Another issue that Kwap deemed important was improving the quality of education in his employees. Pilk had very little schooling, but he’d been seeing a tutor in town who had done wonders with him on many fronts. Reading, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them, but Kwap wanted to see how he was coming along.
Pilk took out his reading glasses and put them on. He slowly unfolded the paper and moved it to a suitable distance for reading. Then he cleared his throat and began.
“D...d...dis...” He smiled as he looked up at Kwap. “‘Dis’ am da first word.”
“Good, good. Go on.”
Kwap was trying to be encouraging.
“Okay.” Pilk adjusted the note again. “B...buh...bock...box. Box!”
“You’re doing swell, Pilk. Keep going.”
“K...kah...kahn...tay...taynz...” He looked up quickly. “Ooh, ‘canteens!’ You fink der am drinks in dis?”
Recognizing that Pilk still had work to do, Kwap reached out his hand. “You’ve done great so far, Pilk. Maybe let me read a little of it too?”
“You mean like parsnipiconstipation, like Mr. Leaber say.”
“I believe you mean participation,” corrected Kwap with a wink, “and, yes, that’s essentially what I mean.” He opened the letter and read it aloud. “This box contains your henchman, Blaze.”
“What?” said Pilk with a look of shock, backing away so fast that he nearly knocked over one of the shelving units.
Kwap rubbed his eyes. “So much for not killing the messenger.”
Just then the box shifted and Kwap could have sworn he’d heard banging coming from within it.
“What was that?”
“The box fing,” Pilk said, shaking.
“Get me out of here,” came a muffled yell that belonged to Blaze.
Pilk turned white. “Dat box are talking!”
“Open it up, you big baby,” Kwap said with a laugh, relieved to find that his nemesis had not, in fact, killed the messenger.
“Nuh-uh,” said Pilk, shaking his head vigorously. “Dat are a ghost in der!”
“If you don’t open this box, Pilk,” came the barely audible reply of Blaze, “I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your life!”
“What do dat ghost say?”
Kwap opened his desk drawer and pulled out a crowbar. He’d kept it handy in case one of his men turned on him. It was a rarity these days, but early in his career he’d learned to watch his back and to always have a weapon within reach.
Putting a bit of weight behind his effort, Kwap successfully cracked open the box, spilling Blaze out onto the floor.
The Dark Elf looked up and released a heavy breath. “Well, that wasn’t very comfortable.”
“I’m assuming Kleeshay declined my offer?” Kwap said, patting his open hand with the crowbar.
“Correct.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Am you a ghost?” Pilk asked from his position in the corner.
Blaze sighed. “Shut up, Pilk.”
HMOCKUS PMOCKUS
One of the major issues that Whizzfiddle always had when dealing with apprentices was reminding them that they were supposed to listen to their master. Gungren was better than most of his prior students, but once the little Giant had his nose buried in a magic book, getting him back out of it was like prying a walnut from the hand of an Ogre.
“You don’t have to reference that silly book every time you want to do a spell,” Whizzfiddle said heatedly. “Sometimes you have to trust your gut.”
“It not a silly book and I are trusting my gut,” Gungren replied in a monotone voice.
“You’re trusting your gut, are you?” said Whizzfiddle. “And how do you imagine that to be the case, exactly?”
“Because my gut say to look up the right spell in this silly book.”
“Oh.”
Jill walked over with Kelsa in-tow. She had her hands on her hips and a surly look on her face. Whizzfiddle couldn’t help but wonder if this Prince Jack N
ubbins hadn’t run off somewhere on purpose.
“What exactly are we doing?” she asked.
“I are looking to see what happened to that prince guy,” Gungren answered. “Erm, I mean Jack.”
“By sitting there and reading a book?” said Kelsa.
Kelsa didn’t sound nearly as impersonal as the princess. If anything, based on Whizzfiddle’s accounting of the situation, anyway, it was as though Kelsa had to really work at being snippy. More like a learned skill than an innate one.
“Exactly what I was thinking, Kelsa,” said Jill with a quick nod.
“The dawn of light rests in gleams among the bark and fallen leaves shadowed by foliage,” Eloquen interrupted as he lithely sauntered over and leaned against a tree.
Gungren kept reading, but translated Eloquen as saying, “Him say that reading is what opens the mind to idea stuff.”
“He did?” the other three said in unison.
“Here that spell I need,” said Gungren an instant later, jumping up and shoving the book into Eloquen’s hands. “Hold that.” Gungren reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of dirt, but stopped before putting it in his mouth. “This spell will show us what have happened.”
Everyone nodded as he began chewing the dirt, then they all looked away, grimacing. Whizzfiddle was used to seeing this, just as he was used to seeing wizards resort to all sorts of happenings in order to keep their power-stores at full capacity. But most people found the image disturbing, especially when Gungren had neglected to remove any worms first.
“Fhowum-whupum-hampenum-vat-madeum-da-guyum-diffapearum,” Gungren said as he waved his magic wand in the air.
They all looked at Eloquen this time, clearly hoping that the translations went in both directions.
Eloquen smiled. “He said, ‘Show-what-happened-that-made-the-guy-dissapear,’ except he used ‘ums’ a lot.”
“You can speak normal?” asked Jill.
“Normal is a relative term,” Eloquen replied coolly.
“I mean like you’re doing now.”
“You mean standard,” said Eloquen. “It’s painful, so I rarely do it. Bad enough hearing it all the time.” He winced. “Okay, enough of that.”
A wind began to pick up and swirl around the area. The ground glowed with multiple sets of green lines that slowly coalesced into two distinct patterns. Each was square with the letter “P” stenciled at the top.
Jill and Kelsa had backed away, and though Jill was the self-proclaimed “better fighter,” she was using Kelsa as a shield.
“Portals,” said Whizzfiddle.
He took off his hat and squatted down to touch the lines. Their essence signaled that the fields were relatively recent. It wasn’t precisely magic, but rather an amalgamation of magic and technology. The wizards in the Upperworld had provided the sorcery and the technicians from the Underworld had provided the engineering.
“The foliage that crests upon the magically distinguished hearkens the hue of the firefly,” said Eloquen with a voice that sounded as though it had regained its ability to breathe.
Whizzfiddle squinted askance at Gungren.
“Him say that you has green hair.”
“Oh!” Whizzfiddle slammed his hat back on.
Part of the Fate Quest that he’d been assigned those years ago not only gave him long life, it also provided him with mood hair. The problem was that he always forgot about it whenever his mind was focused on something else. He glanced at the others, but they seemed to have gotten back to the problem at hand. Maybe it was time for Whizzfiddle to quit worrying so much over his hair. Multicolored or not, at least he had hair.
“Anyway,” he said, shrugging to himself, “these are portal markings.”
“Yep,” said Gungren.
“You are talking about Underworld portals, yes?” said Jill from behind Kelsa.
“Yep.”
“But the closest portal is in Jack’s parents’ hemp storage room,” Kelsa stated.
Jill stepped forward and grimaced. “How’d you know that? I barely know that.”
“These clearly aren’t stationary,” Whizzfiddle said, scanning the rest of the area. “They’re portable portals.”
“Obviously,” said Jill without taking her eyes off Kelsa.
“Hmmm?”
Finally, she spun away. “If they weren’t portable, they’d still be sitting there, right?”
“Fair point.”
“But portable portals are illegal,” said Kelsa. “I know because it’s in our training to arrest anyone who uses one.”
“Exactly,” said Jill and then she spun and pointed at the portal markings. “Wait a second. If these are illegal portals, and those are boot prints, and that is Jack’s favorite rope..." She paused and looked up. "It can only mean one thing.”
Whizzfiddle scratched his beard. “That Jack donned some boots, got an illegal portal so he could go to the Underworld for a bit, and he dropped his rope in the process?”
“Okay,” Jill replied, “it can mean two things. But I don’t think yours is the correct one.”
“Why not?”
“The pairing of firelight singes the ground in streaks of divergence,” explained Eloquen while rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“Yep,” agreed Gungren. “There am two portals. Prince can’t use both at the same time.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Whizzfiddle glanced from face to face. “Was thinking exactly that.”
“Hmmm,” said Eloquen.
Gungren translated, “Him say, ‘Hmmm.’”
“Yes, we got that one.”
Everyone studied the area now, obviously no longer afraid of the magical glow that surrounded everything.
There were very few people who had enough pull to get their hands on a portable portal. Firstly, they were expensive; secondly, if you got caught using one you could end up in prison for a long time, not to mention the guarantee of a full-cavity search during every trip you made through the portal system after making parole; and, lastly, if you got busted selling one, you were looking at life in the slammer with no chance for parole.
“So what’s going on here, exactly?” asked Jill after a moment.
“From what I see,” explained Gungren, “this portal had two guys on it and that portal had three guys on it.”
“That doesn’t really cut it down,” said Kelsa. “Jack could have been taken through either of them.”
“Yep.”
Jill turned to Kelsa. “You used the word ‘taken’ just then. Do you think Jack was kidnapped?”
“Based on the bootprints, the fact that nobody knows about this area, and this…”—she held up Jack’s lucky rope—“I’d say it’s a fair bet.”
“Yep.”
“As someone who has a good many years in this profession, I would have to agree,” Whizzfiddle concurred. “The evidence is rather strong.”
“Yep.”
“Will you stop saying, ‘yep’, Gungren?” Whizzfiddle demanded while wagging his finger at the tiny Giant.
“Yep,” Gungren replied and then looked up. “Oh, sorry.”
Jill snatched the rope away from Kelsa. “But who would want to kidnap my Jack?”
“Exactly what I want to know,” said Kelsa.
“Only one way to find out.”
Whizzfiddle groaned at the thought. He had hoped that since there would be three quests on Gungren’s sheet of to-dos, they would all be quick and easy. Alas, nothing involving the Fates ever seemed to fit that mold.
With much effort, he said, “We have to follow them.”
“Obviously,” said Jill. “But which one do we follow?”
“Three-guy one,” Gungren answered.
“What makes you think that?” said Jill.
“Two came through both of them, but three went out through that one.”
“Huh,” said Whizzfiddle, finding himself again amazed at Gungren’s deductive skills. “He’s right.”
“Could have been thr
ee came through one of them and two through the other,” offered Kelsa.
“Yep, but startistics make my thought more likely.”
“Startistics?”
“He means statistics,” said Whizzfiddle, “and he’s right.”
“What we not know,” Gungren said a moment later, “is where they went.”
Whizzfiddle nodded. “Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a spell for that.”
Gungren grimaced at Whizzfiddle, tapped on his book of spells, and stuck another wad of dirt in his mouth.
“Whereum-didum-go?”
This time the spell acted swiftly, casting a red haze over the three-person portal. It shimmered momentarily before revealing the word WIKR.
“Oh boy,” sighed Whizzfiddle.
“Souls of jovial abundance bounce along the crests of shore in the land of mountainous flesh,” Eloquen added.
Gungren kept staring at the red glow, but said, “Him said that it the land of jolly Giants.”
SPREADING RUMORS
I know it’s an oldie but a goody,” Kleeshay announced as he stood in the lounge with Gespo and Henrik, “but I see an opportunity to trap Kwap and his men.”
Kleeshay didn’t frequent the lounge much these days because he felt it beneath him. He had wanted to polish up the place a bit, but he knew that his underlings preferred their traditions to stay intact. That meant the floors stayed sticky, the walls kept their random stains, including the ones caused by blood, and the overhead lights flickered as if on schedule. The only point they hadn't fought him on was the new chairs that surrounded the brown plastic table. They were cushioned, unlike the old ones that cut into the back of the knees when seated for too long.
Looking at the vending machines, he couldn’t help but remember how tasty those gargantuan burritos were. His stomach’s churning reminded him how explosive they could be as well. These days, when Kleeshay wanted food or drink, he summoned one of his minions to go and retrieve only the best.
“How’s that, boss?” Gespo said from the couch.
“We leak out information that we’ve got the prince holed-up in the main warehouse,” Kleeshay explained. Feeling as though he hadn’t fully embraced his namesake with that sentence, he added, “We just have to pretend that the intelligence is meant to be kept under the table.”
The Kidnapped Prince (Tales from the Land of Ononokin Book 5) Page 11