Bad Unicorn

by Platte F. Clark

  “As to that, the Lord of Shadows is concerned that the monks will refuse passage between the realms. He believes it would require damaging the Tree itself.”

  Rezormoor produced a parchment from his robes and slid it across the table. The goblin grunted, recovering a pair of spectacles that hung from his neck on a golden chain. Once these were on, he leaned forward to read the handwritten draft. The goblin put the paper down and cast a wary look at the sorcerer. “That is what they want?”

  “Yes. I don’t suppose the Maelshadow will take issue with the request?”

  “I don’t presume to speak on behalf of the Lord of Shadows, but I see no reason he would not accept.”

  “The unicorn will not travel by boat—you know how their kind feel about water. Besides, it would be too dangerous to dock at Lanislyr, given the bounty the Mor Luin lords have placed on her head. No, she’ll travel northwest and cross into Turul. Then south past Nagalmosh and Nyridos until she reaches the mountains of Wallan.”

  “A long journey on treacherous paths,” the goblin replied.

  “Long, yes. But not dangerous—not for her.”

  The goblin cleared his throat, wiping the lenses of his spectacles clean. “Let us hope so.”

  “Either way, it allows us time to send word by carrier,” Rezormoor suggested. “Best to let Lanlarick know a deal has been struck. As head of the order, he will have the power to send Princess and Magar to the Techrus. And that is what must happen if we’re to find the Codex.”

  “I will dispatch a pyropigeon,” the goblin agreed. Pyropigeons, like homing pigeons, were trained to deliver messages over long distances. Unlike homing pigeons, pyropigeons would burst into flames once the message was delivered.

  “Good. Then I assume our business is concluded,” Rezormoor said, anxious to get going. “I’m afraid I have other things to attend to.”

  “But of course,” the goblin replied, noting the sand in the hourglass and scribbling the time down in a leather-bound notebook. He turned the heavy timepiece over again. “And if I might add, on a personal note, you seem to be doing well for yourself. Continue to honor your agreements with the Maelshadow and you will be rewarded.”

  “I’m sure,” Rezormoor said, forcing a smile and rising to his feet. “I don’t imagine that he is forgiving of those who fail to satisfy their contracts.”

  The goblin smiled, his rows of sharp teeth looking primitive against his double-breasted suit. “Well . . . let’s just say no one’s ever broken a contract with the Lord of Shadows twice.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  UNDER A CHEESEBURGER MOON

  (THE TECHRUS—FUTURE)

  WHEN THE WORLD CAME BACK INTO FOCUS, MAX, DIRK, SARAH, AND Dwight were no longer standing around the glass counter at the Dragon’s Den. Instead they found themselves in the middle of a forest lit by moonlight.

  And then, adding to the strangeness of the situation, the dagger Dwight was holding decided to speak. “Remember, the walls you build not only keep others out, but keep you in. I think that’s important at a time like this.”

  “You shut your trap and stay out of this,” Dwight grunted, scowling at the ornate blade in his hand. The dagger’s hilt was carved from a solid piece of ivory that took the shape of a man with his hands folded across his stomach. A carved head served as the pommel, and the long body with chest, arms, and belly formed the grip. Farther down, the figure blended into the shape of a horse (as if he were mounted on it), the head and tail forming the dagger’s brass guard. The blade itself was heavy and double sided, but it was the ivory face that was the most curious—a face that was looking around and taking things in.

  Sarah stared at the dagger. “Your knife . . . talked.”

  Dirk, however, was looking up at the night sky. “Cool,” he announced with his usual enthusiasm. “Somebody turned the moon into a cheeseburger.” It wasn’t that the moon was literally a cheeseburger; it just seemed to have a certain cheeseburgerness about it, as if someone had covered it with a food-themed lampshade.

  “Okay, you guys, I’m a little confused,” Sarah managed to say, reaching out to pull on a branch in order to confirm that it was real. The group was in a clearing, surrounded by the ancient remains of broken, vine-covered walls.

  “I think we’re in some kind of ruin,” Dirk suggested.

  “Oh, been to a lot of ruins have you?” Dwight asked, waving the dagger around as he spoke, causing Max to take several steps back.

  “No,” Dirk admitted. “But I’ve played lots of games where you had to explore ruins and stuff. Look—you can see bits and pieces of old walls. And see how the ground is more barren over there? Maybe that was a street or something.”

  “I’m sure your game experiences are fascinating and full of important insights,” Sarah interjected, her voice sounding a little unhinged. “But we were just standing in the middle of the store, right? I mean, that’s where we should be right now—not here, in the middle of all . . . this.”

  “And yet here is where we are,” Dwight said, spitting. “You humans think you’re so smart with all your fancy doodads. But you don’t know nothing—not when magic’s involved.”

  “Ha!” Dirk shouted, pointing at Dwight. “You called us humans and said ‘magic’! You’re totally busted . . . dwarf.”

  “You might want to watch your tone,” Dwight threatened. But Dirk had already moved on, having decided to rummage around the clearing a bit.

  Sarah looked at Max, her face expectant, as if he was about to let her in on some kind of elaborate joke. “Max?” she finally said, watching him closely. “What is this, one of those TV shows where people are pranked or something? How did you get us outside like this?”

  “I don’t know,” Max blurted out. “Honest. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Max looked down at the book in his hand. A knot formed in the middle of his stomach—this was his fault. He didn’t know how, but it was all the same. The book was the key. “Maybe we’re still at the Dragon’s Den,” Dirk said, sounding as if he knew what he was talking about.

  “And how’s that supposed to make any sense?” Sarah asked. “Unless Dwight put something in those incense candles and we’re all lying on the floor and hallucinating.”

  “You mean like vanilla?” Dwight asked, sounding a bit defensive.

  But Dirk was pulling on something beneath the leaves. “Over here you guys. Give me a hand!”

  Max tucked the Codex under his arm and he and Sarah walked over to where Dirk was trying to free something from the ground. They squatted down and began digging around some kind of object. It seemed to be metallic, and maybe glass.

  “Hurry!” Dirk exclaimed, growing excited. Dwight ignored him, however. He had sheathed his dagger and was investigating something else that was buried at his feet.

  After a few moments, Max helped Dirk and Sarah pull a sturdy glass and metal frame from the ground. They leaned it forward as Dirk brushed off years of dirt and grime. It was cracked and damaged, but the faded remains of a black-light poster could still be seen in the moonlight.

  “You can still make it out,” Dirk said. Max and Sarah leaned in for a closer look.

  “It’s like that poster hanging on the wall,” Sarah finally said, her face looking pale in strange orangish light of the cheeseburger moon. “Back at the Dragon’s Den—the one with the skeleton riding the motorcycle.”

  “Not ‘like,’” Dirk said definitively, taking the frame and laying it carefully against a small chunk of what might have been a wall. “It’s the same one.”

  “That’s impossible,” Sarah said slowly, but she didn’t sound completely convinced.

  “What have you done, Max?” Dwight asked, his voice tight. He was looking down at the remains of an old cash register.

  “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

  Dirk pulled something else from the dirt and stepped forward. It was a set of dice covered in grimy plastic. “Game dice!” he announced. “Now we’re talki
ng really old school.”

  “Dirk, quit messing around!” Max shouted. Dirk, however, was unfazed.

  “Don’t you get it?” Dirk continued, looking around at the group. “We didn’t get teleported to someplace else. We’ve been sent some-when else.”

  “That’s not even a word,” Sarah exclaimed.

  “Not important right now,” Dirk continued. “We’ve been totally transported into the future.”

  “The future,” Max replied, making sure he’d heard his friend right.

  “Yep. Look, we’re standing in the middle of the Dragon’s Den right now. There’s the poster, the dice—”

  “And that’s my cash register,” Dwight added, motioning to it at his feet and not sounding too happy about it.

  “No, it can’t . . . ,” Max managed to get out, but he couldn’t finish. He had felt something powerful move in the Codex right before everything changed.

  “And why not?” Dirk continued, folding his arms. “Got a better explanation?”

  “Well, because this is real life,” Max replied, as much for his own benefit as that of his friends. “You can’t just jump forward in time.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly true,” Sarah offered, looking up at the night sky. “GPS satellites have to have their clocks adjusted back because they tick faster than the clocks on earth. The closer to the earth the higher the gravity, and that changes how fast something moves through time. Einstein had it right—theoretically.”

  “Theoretically . . . ?” Dwight exclaimed, walking over to where the group was standing. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! You think you’re so smart with all your science and learning, but you’ve got no idea about magic!”

  “Magic isn’t real,” Sarah said defensively.

  “Then how do you explain the talking dagger?” Dirk asked. “Or did Einstein just make delicious bagels?”

  “Huh . . . ?” Sarah answered, Dirk’s logic causing her brain to momentarily malfunction.

  Dwight, however, was pacing back and forth and mumbling under his breath. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! I should’ve known!” Dwight stopped and turned to Max. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You’re the one that read from the book.”

  “Max . . . ?” Sarah asked, looking at him strangely.

  Max didn’t like being the cause of things; the one who was responsible. He grabbed the Codex with both hands and looked at his friends. “Okay, I felt something happen at the Dragon’s Den. The book showed me things—it was like I was a different person in a different world. But it was confusing, and everything was spinning around and then it was black and then white and then we were here. But it wasn’t what I wanted—the book’s never done that before. It was when Dwight pulled the knife, that’s what started it all.”

  “Oh no, this isn’t my fault!” Dwight exclaimed, pointing a finger at Max. “Read me the cover of your book.”

  Max turned the book around so he could read it. “The Codex of Infinite Knowability, by Maximilian Sporazo.”

  “Exactly!” Dwight exclaimed. “Unbelievable. You walk into my store with only the most powerful book in the three realms and then read from it like you’re the World Sunderer himself! What did you expect would come from that?” Dwight unhooked his scabbard and thrust the dagger toward Max. “Here, take it! Magic’s done nothing but make my life miserable.” Dwight pushed the sheathed blade into Max’s arms, forcing him to take it. “You wanna play wizard, boy, well here you go.”

  Max fumbled with the book and dagger—he didn’t really want the knife, but it was better than having it pointed at him. The moment he grabbed hold of it, however, the little ivory face lit up. “Greetings, Max! I’m Glenn, the Legendary Dagger of Motivation. And I think everything’s going to work out just great!”

  “Wicked cool!” Dirk exclaimed.

  “Er, okay,” Max offered.

  “It wasn’t my choice to come to your world,” Dwight continued, ignoring Glenn. “I don’t like living around humans—I don’t like your small food portions and foul air. I don’t care for reality television or microwave popcorn. And I especially hate the way you’re so tall and full of yourselves. I lived in the Techrus because I had to—I started a business and made a life. Now you’ve gone and destroyed it. All because you’re too arrogant of a race to know when you shouldn’t be playing with things you don’t understand.”

  “Okay, everyone, let’s just settle down,” Sarah said, doing her best to sound calm. “We don’t know what’s happened. So far we’re just exploring possibilities.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dirk exclaimed, looking around. “It’s just like Dwight said. Max’s Codex is really a powerful spell book—that’s why it shocks everyone but him. Dwight here is a real dwarf from, I don’t know, Dwarfistan or something. And Max is some sort of wizard. Which is awesome—he just needed to panic in order to access his magical mojo.”

  “I don’t think ‘panic’ is the right word,” Max said, looking at Sarah.

  “Panicked,” Dirk continued. “So he cast a spell to get away—but instead of transporting us someplace else we jumped into the future. Which, honestly, is understandable. Max is, like, barely level one.”

  “And I suppose I turned the moon into a cheeseburger, too?” Max added, doing his best to show just how ridiculous the whole notion of him being a wizard was.

  “Yeah, well, if anywhere is going to have a cheeseburger moon it’s the future,” Dirk shot back. “Maybe you have to read as much sci-fi as I do, but trust me, that’s what happened.”

  “I know it’s agonizing to have to agree with Dirk,” Dwight grumbled, looking at Max. “But that book is the real Codex of Infinite Knowability. The dwarfs kept it safe for years—I even grew up hearing the stories myself. I don’t know how you ended up with it, or why you can read it, but that doesn’t matter. You can, you did, and now you need to do it again.”

  “But I didn’t do anything, really. It’s more like the book did it to me,” Max protested.

  Dwight produced a lighter from his pocket, giving it a shake by his ear to determine how much fluid it had left. “Well, it didn’t do it by itself, so you’d better get to figuring it all out. Magic is what brought us here, and only magic is going to get us home. Go now, open that book of yours and start reading.”

  “Just because I think it’s okay for Max to read his book, it doesn’t mean I agree with you about all of this,” Sarah said defiantly. “There has to be other explanations we haven’t considered yet.”

  “Sure, missy, you think about those all you want while gathering firewood. The rest of us will build a fire and make camp. It’s cold, it’s dark, we’re someplace out of time, and the moon is a giant cheeseburger. I don’t know what it all means, but I got a feeling it ain’t good.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A RUN IN THE WOODS

  (THE TECHRUS—FUTURE)

  IT TOOK AN HOUR OR SO, BUT MAX AND HIS FRIENDS MANAGED TO build a makeshift camp. They cleared out a small circle of debris and found rocks for a fire pit. In no time they had a fire going—which seemed to make everyone feel a little better and a lot warmer. Dwight constructed a quick lean-to with a pine-needle floor, complaining all the while about his general dislike for the outdoors. The instant Dirk laid his head down he fell asleep, the package of game dice still clutched in his hand. Sarah sat watching the fire, and Max continued to flip through the pages of the Codex, looking for anything that had to do with traveling into the future. But so far, the Codex seemed inclined only to share accounts of frobbit ceremonies and living arrangements. None of it struck Max as being particularly interesting or useful. He shut the book and rubbed his eyes—he could feel a headache coming on.

  “No luck, huh?” Sarah asked as she poked at the flames with a stick. Max noticed how her auburn hair appeared brighter against the yellow flames of the fire.

  “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

  “It’s weird, I keep thinking a
bout the last time I went camping with my mom and dad. We brought a bunch of hotdogs. I don’t normally like hotdogs—I’m not even sure what’s in a hotdog—but there’s something about cooking them around a campfire that makes them great.”

  “Like s’mores,” Max added, feeling his stomach grumble at the mention of the word. “I only went camping once but we made these s’mores and they were awesome. Does camping make food taste better, or are we just hungry?”

  Sarah smiled. “I don’t think it’s just the camping—it’s because you’re with the people you love.”

  Max wasn’t sure what to say to that, probably because he thought hotdogs cooked in a microwave were pretty good too.

  “I just want to go home, Max,” Sarah said with a sigh.

  Max wanted to say just the exact thing to make Sarah feel better, but he couldn’t think of it. The silence was starting to get awkward, and with each passing second it seemed more and more important that he say the right thing. Finally he blurted out the next thing that came to him: “I’ve got to go to the bathroom!”

  Max cringed just to hear the word “bathroom” hang in the air like that. It was probably the most pathetic thing ever said. Even Dirk grunted and turned over in his sleep. But somehow it made Sarah smile. “You’re pretty funny, Max.”

  Max just kept his mouth shut, not wanting to make the moment any worse. Sarah yawned, then stretched out on her side, staying close to the fire, folding her hands under her head like a pillow. “I have this wish,” she said, sounding sleepy. “When I wake up I’m going to be in my own bed, in my own room, and in my own house. And at breakfast I’m going to tell my parents about this weird dream I had. It will be this whole day at school that never happened—no fight with the Kraken, no getting into trouble with the vice principal, no going to the Dragon’s Den, and no boy who was really a wizard and zapped me into the future. And we’ll all laugh about it, because of how weird it is—even for a dream.”

  “I wish I could wake up tomorrow and have it all be a dream too. Except . . .”