"Here we are," said Briddlecroonak, coming to a halt in front of the fountain.
I looked around and didn't see anyone. Certainly no Valks, Groks, or Grzils. (I had no idea what any of those things were, but I had a feeling they'd stand out around here as much as—oh, for example—a talking marsupial.)
I looked again at the opossum. "I mean, on a scale of one to ten, would you describe Grok as a nine? A two?"
"Before you can defeat Grok in glorious combat—"
"Are we sure it has to be combat? Maybe Grok and I could just talk. You know—work things out like adults."
"—you must first claim Jasmine Truethunder."
Momentarily distracted, I asked, "What if she doesn't want to be claimed? Has anyone asked her how she feels about this?"
Briddlecroonak started wheezing. I only realized it was laughter after he said, "Ah, thank you, my brave friend. That witticism helped break the tension."
"I'm still tense."
"Now is the time! This is the place!" Briddlecroonak rose up on his hind legs and waved his little pink claws majestically. "Jasmine Truethunder has lain in wait for years beyond counting, sleeping until this moment! Claim her, Avenger of the Valk! Claim her and know your destiny!"
I looked around again and still didn't see anyone.
"Claim her!" the opossum repeated.
"Is there a sleeping princess somewhere that I'm supposed to kiss?" I asked in confusion.
The seer's nose twitched and his lips curled up over his fangs for a moment. Then he said, with forced patience, "Reach into the fountain."
"What? No way. Do you have any idea how many drunken students have pissed in this fountain since the last time it was cleaned—which was probably when Ronald Reagan was president?"
Briddlecroonak got back down on all fours. "Look, if you won't even touch a little dirty water, then this night is going to be a disaster. And the Five Kingdoms are doomed."
I looked into in the murky water. "Oh... crap." And considering the way it smelled, that was another substance that was probably floating in it. "All right." I rolled up my sleeve, thinking that as soon as we were done here, I was going to the med center to have my whole arm sterilized.
As I plunged my hand and forearm into the slimy water, I acknowledged that all my behavior tonight—and particularly this moment—confirmed that it was past time for me to drop out of law school and come up with a better plan for my life. Except that I was still in law school because I didn't have any other plan. I was every bit as aimless and unfocused as I had always—
"Whoa!"
I was so surprised I nearly fell into the fountain when a bright, iridescent light suddenly spread across the water, turning it a dozen shades of glimmering blue, violet, and turquoise. Even more surprisingly, the water was suddenly crystal clear, as if no one in the whole history of the college had ever pissed, spat, or vomited into it.
And from the depths of the crystal-clear water that shimmered and glowed with strange enchantment, there arose a gleaming steel blade. As I reached for it, it whirled away and spun around in a dizzying circle, then floated up to the surface—up, up, up until it broke through the water and soared into the air. Still trying to grab it, I stumbled forward, and now it came into my outstretched hand as if escorted there by destiny itself.
"Wow," I said.
"Your weapon, Jasmine Truethunder," Briddlecroonak said triumphantly.
"Weapon? It's, um, a penknife." I folded the blade closed, then opened it again. "See?"
"As legend foretold, she gave herself into the hand of the true Avenger of the Valk," the opossum said somberly. "You and no other are destined to slay Grok and master the Grzilbeast—or die trying!"
"Die?" I repeated. "Did you say—?"
"Embrace your true identity, Vworntokthalis! Bond with Jasmine Truethunder, for she will not fail you." Briddlecroonak added, "Well, probably not."
I was very impressed by the whole event, of course, but even so... "This is a penknife."
The seer placed a little pink claw on my ankle. "Now you are ready for deadly combat, Vworntokthalis. Now you must face Grok the Valkslayer."
"If I'm honest, that suffix, slayer, has me a little worried," I said. "How many Valk has he slain, for example? And in addition to having a secret identity as their avenger, do I also have a secret identity as a Valk? If so, then isn't it likely Grok might slay me, given that—"
"You really have been in law school too long, haven't you?" asked the seer.
"But not for much longer!" said a menacing, gravelly voice behind us. "Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Moving as one man (so to speak), Briddlecroonak and I whirled around to confront the owner of that voice, and we found ourselves facing...
"Professor James?" I said in surprise, seeing my notoriously unpleasant Antitrust Law lecturer standing there in the dark, laughing maniacally. I recognized him even though his eyes, normally a dull brown, were now bright red and glowing—which, I don't mind admitting, I found pretty unnerving. A split second later I saw the thing crouching next to him on all fours, and I nearly wet myself. "What the hell is that?"
"Grok!" exclaimed Briddlecroonak.
"That's Grok?" I said in horror, staring at the thing beside Professor James. "How am I supposed to fight that?"
It was some sort of animal, roughly the size of a Saint Bernard, but clearly feline in nature. It looked as if someone had crossed a domestic tabby cat with a prehistoric saber-toothed tiger—and then did something to make the offspring very, very angry. The thing was growling and crouching as if preparing for attack, its hackles raised, its long fangs bared and dripping with saliva.
"Seer! So we meet again after all these years," Professor James said in a menacing voice. Then to me, he said, "Hello, Dave."
"That's Grok?" I repeated. "What am I supposed to do with a penknife?"
Too scared to look away from the giant crouching cat, I waved my implement around in Briddlecroonak's general direction, though probably five feet above his little head.
Professor James gasped and fell back a step. "Jasmine Truethunder!"
"Hah! That's right, Grok!" said the opossum. "I found Vworntokthalis first. You are too late to prevent the Avenger of the Valk from bonding with his fateful weapon and... and... and avenging the Valk you have slain!"
"Jesus, kill a few lousy Valk and the Wizened Ones of Loremead send half the heroes in the Five Kingdoms after you," grumbled Professor James. "This is getting so tedious. But, oh, well, I guess I'll have to kill another warrior."
"You're Grok the Valkslayer?" I said in astonishment, gazing into his glowing red eyes. James was the most burned out, snide, and unpleasant professor in the whole law school (which was saying something). He had been here for decades and seemed embittered and overdue for retirement. "I don't believe it."
"Frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that you're the Avenger," he shot back. "You have maintained an impressively convincing disguise of utterly forgettable mediocrity during your sojourn at this institution. I congratulate you, Dave."
"Um, thanks."
Except for the glowing eyes and the menacing creature beside him, his behavior seemed completely normal (yes, he was like this all of the time).
"You're really Grok the Valkslayer?"
"Long have I awaited this moment, Avenger," he intoned. "It was foretold by the ancients that you and I should meet in mortal combat, and the fate of the Valk would be decided between us."
"I don't suppose we could just talk about the Valk?" I said without much hope. As far as anyone knew, James had never once agreed to a student's reasonable request.
"Heresy!" he thundered. "Even the Codex of the Ninth-Born and the secretly-coded Long Island Railroad timetable proclaim that one or the other of us must die this dark night, Avenger! Face up to your destiny!"
"You've had a little more time to prepare for this than I have," I pointed out.
"Always with the excuses, Dave," he said with disgust. "If you failed to prepare for t
his test, it's your own fault."
"Oh, now wait just a damn minute. I was walking along tonight, minding my own..." I came to my senses and shook my head. "No, never mind. Forget it. Let's just get on with this."
It was my Antitrust mid-term all over again.
"Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!" he laughed.
Seriously, except for the glowing red eyes and the giant snarling feline at his side, this was just like being in his classroom.
I glanced anxiously at the creature beside him. "So I guess that's the Dread Grzilbeast that you freed from its enchanted sleep in the Caves of... of..."
"The Caverns of Mimnoth!" he snapped. "Didn't you prepare at all, Dave?"
God, I hated this guy. I'm generally opposed to physical violence, let alone mortal combat. But I realized, standing there in the dark as Professor James, a.k.a. Grok the Valkslayer, sneered and jeered at me, that if I was ever going to kill anyone, then I really wanted it to be him. In fact, as memories of the frustrating injustices and undeserved humiliations I had suffered in his class flashed through my memory, I realized that something inside me understood, believed, and knew that I was indeed destined to kill him—or die trying.
So I said grimly, "Oh, believe me, Grok, I am prepared for this, all right. You prepared me."
"What's that supposed to mean, Avenger?" he said with a sneer.
"That's Mister Avenger, to you," I said with a half-decent sneer of my own.
"Oh, this is going just like the Prophecies of Joralion said it would!" Briddlecroonak clapped his paws and gave an excited little hop. "Prepare to meet thy doom, Valkslayer!"
"Hah!"
Moving with the speed and agility of a young athlete, which took me by complete surprise, Grok leaped straight at me. He was brandishing a dagger (where had that come from all of a sudden?) with three long, shiny blades—all of them aimed at my throat.
I shrieked, staggered backward, and reflexively threw my penknife at him. Hey, I was new to this whole mortal combat thing and hadn't expected the old man to jump me so fast or fiercely. So I panicked.
Jasmine Truethunder flew straight into Grok's forehead and hit him right between the eyes with a solid thud! Grok froze in mid-leap, hovered motionless for a moment, then keeled over and lay there on the ground, his eyes remaining wide open as the strange red glow slowly faded from them. My penknife was sticking out of his head, its blade having sunk into his skull.
Briddlecroonak squeaked and squealed with excitement, running around in little circles. "You have done it, Vworntokthalis! Hip-hip-hurrah! You have triumphed over the Valkslayer!"
"I have?" I tiptoed closer to Professor James's prone body. "Is he... dead?"
I had barely finished asking the question when a putrid yellow mist arose from the corpse. The body began liquefying, bubbling and gurgling noisily, churning itself into the thickening yellow mist that stank of sulfur as it soared upward and away.
"Whoa!"
"Hurrah! Hurrah! The Valkslayer is slain! He has fallen to the Avenger's mighty blow!"
I stood back and held my nose, gagging at the stench, as the body disintegrated and evaporated, roiling skyward and then dissipating on the wind.
When there was nothing left of Grok's body except a little sticky slime and the penknife which had slain him, I bent over, picked up Jasmine Truethunder, and used my sleeve to wipe clean the blade of my bonded weapon.
Then I held Jasmine Truethunder aloft and proclaimed, "This is the true hero of this dark night."
Briddlecroonak patted my ankle. "But you certainly helped."
I shrugged. "And, happily, I don't have to try to explain the corpse of my most hated professor to the law school dean."
I heard a loud snarl, looked over my shoulder, and realized that I was about to become a corpse. The Dread Grzilbeast gave a mighty roar and then launched itself at me.
In my terror, I dropped my penknife rather than throwing it.
Fleeing for my life, I turned, ran—and immediately fell into the fountain. Now that it had surrendered Jasmine Truethunder to me, it was no longer glowing and clear, but had returned to its usual putrid condition. But since this was no time to be fastidious, I simultaneously staggered, flailed, and swam as fast I could, moving further into the murky water as I felt the Grzilbeast enter the fountain behind me, its immense claws reaching for me.
"Agh!" I made a desperate lunge to escape the big, bloodthirsty monster.
"Meow!" a pathetic little voice wailed directly behind me. "Meow!"
I glanced over my shoulder and saw... a small tabby cat dog-paddling in the filthy water, trying not to drown as it cried for help.
There was no sign of the Grzilbeast.
"What the...?"
I reached instinctively for the drowning tabby cat, which clung to me and cried pathetically. I clutched it to my chest as I looked around, dreading the renewed sight of the long-fanged beast that had been chasing me only a moment ago.
"You have returned the Dread Grzilbeast to its enchanted sleep!" cried Briddlecroonak, punching the air with a little, pink fist. "Yes!"
"I've done what?" I said, standing in the middle of the stinking fountain.
The seer gestured to the frightened cat that clung to my chest as I started wading to the edge of the fountain. "This is the Grzilbeast in its enchanted form."
"Seriously?" I looked down at the sputtering cat. "It looks just like the mouser that lives in the basement of the law library."
"Yes, that is where Grok woke it, intent on using its unleashed ferocity for his own evil purposes."
"The library basement?"
The opossum nodded. "Also known as—"
"Let me guess," I said. "The Caverns of Mimnoth?"
"Precisely. And we must return the sleeping Grzilbeast to the Caverns of Mimnoth—"
"Or, in local dialect, we must return Stripes to her kitty bed in the basement of the library—"
"—and flee this realm before the Minions of Grok find, torture, and dismember us."
"Well, I was going to say, 'Before anyone notices Stripes is missing,' but, hey, you say tomato, I say to-mah... Wait... What did you just say?"
"That sulfuric mist rose from the body to be carried on the winds to the Cliffs of Nomhara, where the Minions of Grok will be alerted to the slaying of their revered idol."
"That guy had minions?"
"They will want to punish the hero who slew him," said my companion. "And believe me, you do not want to mess with minions."
"But why did—"
"Garrgh!"
Briddlecroonak the Seer had a vision. Peering sightlessly into this dark night, he drew in a long, deep, noisy breath through his little pink nostrils and made a humming sound. Then he said, "The mist has already reached some of the minions."
"That was fast." Still clutching the cat, I hauled myself out of the fountain, soaking wet and smelling incredibly rank. "What should we do now?"
"We must flee to the Valley of Sohn where we can rally with the Exiled Ones and mount a defense."
"Okay, that's pretty specific," I said with a nod. "I guess you know where this valley is?"
He waggled his paw. "More or less. We might need to ask directions along the way."
"But why are we going to rally with the Exiled Ones?" I asked as we headed rapidly in the direction of the law library, so we could return Stripes to her proper place before departing. "Shouldn't we go find the Valk? I mean, I'm their Avenger, right? I just slew Grok the Valkslayer, and all that."
"Oh, the Valk will shower you with gratitude and glory when next we meet them," said Briddlecroonak, "but they're basically a species of decorative butterfly and, as such, not very useful in a situation like this. So we'll rally with them some other time, Vworntokthalis."
"All right. That makes sense," I said. "But there's just one thing I have to say before we go off on another adventure."
"Yes, of course." The opossum nodded. "I know what it is."
"Oh, right. You're a seer."
&
nbsp; "You're not sure this is the right path for you, leaving behind all that you know in order to travel to strange lands, face more deadly foes, meet with danger and constant—"
"Oh, no, that's all fine. No problem there."
He stopped waddling and stared at me. "No?"
"No. I've finally figured out what to do with my life. I'm on board. Avenging the Valk, heroic deeds, deadly enemies, mortal combat—count me in all the way. But..."
"Yes?"
"I'd really rather you just call me Dave, if you don't mind. I can't even pronounce Vw... Vw... the name you've been calling me."
"Oh! All right. If you wish it, of course I can call you Dave."
"Great." I gave my furry partner a friendly little pat on the back. "Now let's get Stripes to safety and then go rendezvous with the Exiled Ones in the Valley of whatever."
And thus it was that I dropped out of law school and embarked on my true path in life.
This story originally appeared in Urban Fantasy magazine, 2015.
Laura Resnick is the author of the popular Esther Diamond urban fantasy series, whose releases include Disappearing Nightly, Doppelgangster, Unsympathetic Magic, Vamparazzi, Polterheist, The Misfortune Cookie, Abracadaver, and the upcoming Goldzilla. She has also written traditional fantasy novels such as In Legend Born, The Destroyer Goddess, and The White Dragon, which made multiple "Year's Best" lists. An opinion columnist, frequent public speaker, and the Campbell Award-winning author of many short stories, she is on the Web at LauraResnick.com.
Crumbs
Esther Friesner
SIR HANSON THE HAWK-EYED rode his mount to the edge of the Dark Woods, peered into their sinister shadows, and pondered the next step of the quest he was about to undertake in the name of his sovereign, Good King Donald. As the boldest, bravest, and third-handsomest knight ever to couch lance in the service of his king, there could be only one thought going through his mind at such a solemn moment, namely:
"Why do I always get the squirrel-butt jobs?"
It was a rhetorical question whose answer he knew well: The boldest, bravest, and third-handsomest knight in the realm was also the poorest, having come of nouveau only-relatively-riche peasant stock. Being a knight was a costly business. Horses didn't grow on trees. And while Good King Donald was quite good, he applied most of said goodness to himself.
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