The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  He felt . . . Colquittish.

  “Have you seen Colquitt lately, Dean?” said Mrs Hopkins, as the two smoked a post-coital cigarette one evening in June.

  The dean chose to ignore his dart-pocked photograph stuck to the bedroom door above Mr Hopkins’ housecoat peg. It wasn’t his fault if Mr Hopkins wasn’t up to standard as far as Mrs Hopkins’ needs were concerned. The dean took the search for G-spots seriously. The typing pool girls would vouch for that. And Maureen had tipped her sponge cake into her lap, such now was his expertise.

  “No, not for a while, Mrs Hopkins. He seems to have gone a little introverted. Spends his time skulking about his dormitory room, so I’m told.”

  “He’s changed,” said Mrs Hopkins. “In polarity, for a start. His electrons are spinning the other way. I noticed just yesterday when he passed by the magnetron. His up quarks have turned strange.”

  The dean raised himself to his elbows. He wondered if all that was some sort of euphemism for repressed homosexuality. Funny, but he’d never thought that Colquitt might be riding on the other bus. And he’d always hated it whenever the girls in the typing pool made the same suggestion about himself during the shy, dark, unhappy, pre Colquitt’s high-energy trousers days.

  Mrs Hopkins stubbed her cigarette out in one of Mr Hopkins’ slippers. “Oh, and he mentioned he’d like you to meet him at the hot plasma field generator in the morning, Dean.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said something about some new science or other he’s up to. Asked me to find him half a dozen jam jars and a pair of oversized underpants for an experiment. I wonder what all that’s about.”

  The dean dressed quickly.

  He liked the new spin of his electrons just fine.

  The Dean’s Hot-Plasma Underwear was not for him.

  A DRAMA OF DRAGONS

  Craig Shaw Gardner

  (1)

  A good magician should always subscribe to the highest purposes, and nothing should dissuade him from these lofty goals, except, perhaps, that he has to eat, and it is nice to put a little away for retirement.

  – from The Teachings of Ebenezum

  Volume III

  I could no longer bring myself to gather firewood. My world had ended. She hadn’t come.

  I sat for far too long in the sunlit glade where we always met. Perhaps she didn’t realize it was noon; she had somehow been delayed; her cool blue eyes and fair blonde hair, the way her slim young body moved, the way she laughed, how it felt when she touched me. Surely she was on her way.

  But I didn’t even know her name! Only her interest in me – a magician’s apprentice. She’d once called magicians the closest things to play actors she knew in this backwater place, said she’d always admired the stage. And then she laughed, and we kissed and –

  A cold breeze sprang up behind my back. Winter was coming.

  I gathered what logs and branches I could find and trudged back to my master’s cottage.

  In the distance I heard a sneeze. My master Ebenezum, no doubt one of the world’s greatest magicians until an unfortunate occurrence involving a demon from the seventh Nether-hell. My master had succeeded in banishing the foul creature, by far the most powerful he had ever faced, but his triumph was not without its costs. From that moment onward, Ebenezum found that, should he even approach something of a sorcerous nature, he would fall into an immediate and extended sneezing fit. This malady had put something of a crimp in Ebenezum’s wizardly career, but my master was not one to accept defeat easily. Just this moment, he had probably made another attempt to read from one of his magic tomes. Hence the sneeze. Why else?

  Unless there was something sorcerous in the air.

  Perhaps there was another reason besides my mood that the world was so dark around me, another reason that she hadn’t met me as we’d planned. The bushes moved on my right. Something very large flew across the sun.

  I managed the front door with the firewood still in my arms. I heard the wizard sneeze. Repeatedly. My master stood in the main room, one of his great books spread on the table before him. I hurried to his aid, forgetting, in my haste, the firewood that scattered across the table as I reached for the book, a few miscellaneous pieces falling among the sneezing Ebenezum’s robes.

  I closed the book and glanced apprehensively at the mage. To my surprise, Ebenezum blew his nose on a gold-inlaid, dark blue sleeve and spoke to me in the calmest of tones.

  “Thank you, ’prentice.” He delicately removed a branch from his lap and laid it on the table. “If you would dispose of this in a more appropriate place?”

  He sighed deep in his throat. “I’m afraid that my affliction is far worse than I imagined. I may even have to call on outside assistance for my cure.”

  I hastened to retrieve the firewood. “Outside assistance?” I inquired discreetly.

  “We must seek out another magician as great as I,” Ebenezum said, his every word heavy with import. “Though to do that, we might have to travel as far as the great city of Vushta.”

  “Vushta?” I replied. “With its pleasure gardens and forbidden palaces? The city of unknown sins that could doom a man for life? That Vushta?” All at once, I felt the lethargy lift from my shoulders. I quickly deposited the wood by the fireplace.

  “That Vushta.” Ebenezum nodded. “With one problem. We have not the funds for traveling, and no prospects for gaining same.”

  As if responding to our plight, a great gust blew against the side of the cottage. The door burst open with a swirl of dirt and leaves, and a short man wearing tattered clothes, face besmirched with grime, staggered in and slammed the door behind him.

  “Flee! Flee!” the newcomer cried in a quavering voice. “Dragons! Dragons!” With that, his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed on the floor.

  “I have found, however,” Ebenezum said as he stroked his long, white beard, “in my long career as a magician, Wuntvor, if you wait around long enough, something is bound to turn up.”

  (2)

  Dire creatures from the Netherhells should always be faced directly, unless it is possible to face them some other way, say from behind a bush, in perfect safety.

  – from The Teachings of Ebenezum

  Volume V

  With some water on the head and some wine down the gullet, we managed to revive the newcomer.

  “Flee!” he sputtered as he caught his breath. He glanced about wildly, his pale blue eyes darting from my master to me to floor to ceiling. He seemed close to my master in age, but there the similarity ceased. Rather than my master’s mane of fine, white hair, the newcomer was balding, his hair matted and stringy. Instead of the wizard’s masterful face, which could convey calm serenity or cosmic anger with the flick of an eyebrow, the other’s face was evasive; small nose and chin, a very wrinkled brow, and those eyes, darting blue in his dark, mud-spattered face.

  “Now, now, good sir,” Ebenezum replied in his most reasonable voice, often used to charm young ladies and calm bill collectors. “Why the hurry? You mentioned dragons?”

  “Dragons!” The man stood somewhat shakily. “Well, at least dragon! One of them has captured Gurnish Keep!”

  “Gurnish Keep?” I queried.

  “You’ve seen it,” Ebenezum murmured, his cold grey eyes still on our guest. “ ’Tis the small castle on yonder hill at the far side of the woods.” Ebenezum snorted in his beard. “Castle? ’Tis really more of a stone hut, but it’s the home of our neighbor, the Duke of Gurnish. It’s a very small dukedom. For that matter, he’s a very small duke.”

  Our visitor was, if anything, more agitated than before. “I didn’t run all the way through Gurnish Forest to hear a discussion of the neighborhood. We must flee!”

  “Gurnish Forest?” I inquired.

  “The trees right behind the hut,” my master replied. “Surely the Duke’s idea. Everyone else knows the area as Wizard’s Woods.”

  “What do you mean, Wizard’s Woods?” the newcomer snapped. “This area
is Gurnish Forest. Officially. As Gurnish Keep is an official castle!”

  “’Tis only a matter of opinion,” Ebenezum replied, a smile that could charm both barbarians and maiden aunts once again upon his face. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

  “Possibly.” The newcomer, who was somewhat shorter than my master’s imposing frame, shifted uneasily under the wizard’s gaze. “But shouldn’t we flee? Dragons, you know.”

  “Come now, man. I wouldn’t be a full-fledged wizard if I hadn’t dealt with a dragon or two.” Ebenezum looked even more closely at the newcomer than he had before. “Say. Aren’t you the Duke of Gurnish?”

  “Me?” the smaller man said. His eyes shifted from my master to me and back again. “Well – uh – ”He coughed. “I suppose I am.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? I haven’t seen you since you stopped trying to tax me.” Ebenezum’s smile went to its broadest as he signaled me to get our guest a chair. The duke obviously had money.

  “Well, this whole situation’s a bit awkward,” our honored guest said as he stared at the floor. “I’m afraid I feel rather undukeish.”

  “Nonsense. A run-in with a dragon can unnerve anyone. Would you like some more wine? A nice fire to warm you?”

  “No, thank you.” The duke lowered his voice even more than before. “Don’t you think it would be better if we fled? I mean, dragons. And I’ve seen other things in the forest. Perhaps if your powers were –” The duke coughed again. “You see, I’ve heard of your accident.”

  Ebenezum bristled a bit at the last reference, but the smile more or less remained on his face. “Gossip, good duke. Totally blown out of proportion. We’ll deal with your dragon in no time.”

  “But the dragon’s taken over Gurnish Keep! He’s immense, bright blue and violet scales, twenty-five feet from head to tail. His wings scrape the ceiling of my great hall! And he’s invincible. He’s captured my castle and beautiful daughter, and defeated my retainer!”

  Beautiful daughter? My thoughts returned to the girl of my dreams. Where had she gone? What had kept her away?

  “Only a child!” the duke cried. “No more than seventeen. Fine blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, a lovely, girlish figure. And the dragon will burn her to a crisp if we don’t do his bidding!”

  Blonde? Blue? Figure? I had a revelation.

  “Come now, man,” Ebenezum remarked. “Calm down. It’s common knowledge that dragons tend to be overdramatic. All the beast’s really done so far is to overwhelm one retainer. I assume you still only had one retainer?”

  She hadn’t deserted me! She was only held prisoner! All the time she and I had spent together, all those long, warm afternoons, that’s why she would tell me nothing of herself! A duke’s daughter!

  The duke glared at my master. “It wouldn’t be like that if my subjects paid their taxes!”

  A duke’s daughter. And I would rescue her! There’d be no need for secrecy then. How magnificent our lives would be!

  A fire lit in Ebenezum’s eyes. “Perhaps if certain local nobility were not so concerned with extending the borders of his tiny dukedom –” The wizard waved his hands and the fire disappeared. “But that’s not important. We have a dragon to evict. As I see it, the elements here are quite ordinary. Dragon captures castle and maiden. Very little originality. We should be able to handle it tidily.”

  The duke began to object again, but Ebenezum would have none of it. Only one thing affected his nose more than sorcery – money – and the smell of it was obvious in the cottage. My master sent the duke outside while we gathered the paraphernalia together for dragon fighting.

  When I had packed everything according to my master’s instructions, Ebenezum beckoned me into his library. Once in the room, the wizard climbed a small stepladder, and, carefully holding his nose, pulled a slim volume from the uppermost shelf.

  “We may have need of this.” His voice sounded strangely hollow, most likely the result of thumb and forefinger pressed into his nose. “In my present condition, I can’t risk using it. But it should be easy enough for you to master, Wuntvor.”

  He descended the ladder and placed the thin, dark volume in my hands. Embossed in gold on the cover were the words “How to Speak Dragon”.

  “But we must be off.” Ebenezum exclaimed, clapping my shoulder. “Musn’t keep a client waiting. You may study that book on our rest stops along the way.”

  I stuffed the book hurriedly in the paraphernalia-filled pack and shouldered the whole thing, grabbed my walking staff and followed my master out the door. With my afternoon beauty at the end of my journey, I could manage anything.

  My master had already grabbed the duke by the collar and propelled him in the proper direction. I followed at Ebenezum’s heels as fast as the heavy pack would allow. The wizard, as usual, carried nothing. As he often had explained, it kept his hands free for quick conjuring and his mind free for sorcerous conjecture.

  I noticed a bush move, then another. Rustling like the wind pushed through the leaves, except there was no wind. The forest was as still as when I had waited for my afternoon love. Still the bushes moved.

  Just my imagination, I thought. Like the darkness of the forest. I glanced nervously at the sky, half-expecting the sun to disappear again. What was so big that it blotted out the sun?

  A dragon?

  But my musings were cut short by a man dressed in bright orange who stood in our path. He peered through an odd instrument on the end of a pole.

  I glanced at the duke, walking now at my side. He had begun to shiver.

  The man in orange looked up as we approached. “Good afternoon,” he said, the half frown on his face disproving the words. “Could you move a little faster? You’re blocking the emperor’s highway, you know.”

  The duke shook violently.

  “Highway?” Ebenezum asked, stopping mid-path rather than hurrying by the man in orange.

  “Yes, the new road that the great and good Emperor Flostok III has decreed –”

  “Flee!” the duke cried. “Dragons! Dragons! Flee!” He leapt about, waving his hands before the emperor’s representative.

  “See here!” the orange man snapped. “I’ll have none of this. I’m traveling to see the Duke of Gurnish on important business.”

  The duke stopped hopping. “Duke?” he said, pulling his soiled clothing back into place. “Why, I’m the Duke of Gurnish. What can I help you with, my good man?”

  The man in orange frowned even deeper. “It’s about the upkeep of the road . . .”

  “Certainly.” The duke glanced back at us. “Perhaps we should go somewhere that we can talk undisturbed.” The duke led the man in orange into the underbrush.

  “They deserve each other,” Ebenezum muttered. “But to business.” He looked at me solemnly. “A bit about dragons. Dragons are one of the magical sub-species. They exist largely between worlds, partly on Earth and partly in the Netherhells, and never truly belong to either. There are other magical subspecies –”

  Ebenezum’s lecture was interrupted by a commotion in the underbrush. Large arms with a thick growth of grayish-brown hair rose and fell above the bushes, accompanied by human screams.

  “Another sub-species is the troll,” Ebenezum remarked.

  I let my pack slide from my back and firmly grasped my staff. They would eat my true love’s father! I had never encountered trolls before, but this was as good a time as any to learn.

  “Slobber! Slobber!” came from the bushes before us. A rough voice, the sound of a saw biting into hardwood. I assumed it was a troll.

  “Wait!” another voice screamed. “You can’t do this! I’m a representative of the emperor!”

  “Slobber! Slobber!” answered a chorus of rough voices.

  “Let’s get this over with!” Another voice, high and shaky. The duke?

  Although the voices were quite close now, it was getting difficult to distinguish individual words. It just sounded like a large amount of screaming, punctuated
by cries of “slobber!” I lifted my staff over my head and ran forward with a scream of my own.

  I broke into a small clearing with four occupants. One was the duke. The other three were among the ugliest creatures I’d seen in my short life. Squat and covered with irregular tufts of greybrown fur, which did nothing to hide the rippling muscles of their barrel-like arms and legs. Three pairs of very small red eyes turned to regard me. One of them swallowed something that looked a good deal like an orange-clad foot.

  The sight of the three hideous creatures completely stopped my forward motion. They regarded me in silence.

  “Oh, hello,” I said, breaking into the sinister quiet. “I must have wandered off the path. Excuse me.”

  One of the trolls barrelled towards me on its immensely powerful legs. “Slobber,” it remarked. It was time to leave. I turned and bumped into my master, who ignored me as he made a mystic gesture.

  “No slobber! No slobber!” the trolls cried and ran back into the heart of the woods.

  I picked myself up and helped the wizard regain his feet as well. Ebenezum sneezed for a full three minutes, the result of his actually employing magic. When he caught his breath at last, he wiped his nose on his robe and regarded me all too evenly.

  “Wuntvor,” he said quietly. “What do you mean by dropping all our valuable equipment and running off, just so you can be swallowed by –”

  The duke ran between the two of us. “Flee! Flee! Dragons! Trolls! Flee!”

  “And you!” my master said, his voice rising at last. “I’ve had enough of your jumping about, screaming hysterical warnings! Why do you even worry? You were surrounded by trolls and they didn’t touch you. You lead a charmed life!” He grabbed the duke’s shoulder with one hand and mine with the other and pushed us back to the trail.

  “Come,” he continued. “We will reach Gurnish Keep before nightfall. There, my assistant and I will deal with this dragon, and you, good duke, will pay us handsomely for our efforts.” The wizard deposited us on the trail and walked briskly towards the castle before the duke could reply.