“Go for it.”
She touched my head, and a tingling sensation danced across my scalp. Words appeared in front of me. They were foreign words, written in various texts, some composed of flowing script and others only symbols. When I looked at them, I heard them in my mind. I was bombarded with thousands of words. Instant headache.
“Jesus lady,” I said, rubbing my temples. “You said it wouldn’t hurt.”
“It may have been uncomfortable, but I doubt it hurt.”
“So I just learned a bunch of languages?”
“Exactly 127. Every spoken language on Tarth…well, almost all. I cannot allow you to suddenly understand the language of magic.”
“Why not?”
“Because your head would explode,” she said dryly.
“127… There are that many different groups of humans?”
“There are only a dozen or so, but there are goblins who speak, and elves, dwarves, trolls, giants, and pixies. Things of that nature.”
“You mentioned the Goblin King earlier, but I was hoping that was just a nickname for a person. Are you telling me there are real goblins here? And all those other creatures?”
“Yes, of course,” she said as if the question was strange. “Don’t you have creatures like that on your world?”
“No.”
“You must have at one time, or you wouldn’t know what they were.”
I wondered if the old myths and bedtime story creatures had once been real.
“Now that you can understand the creatures here,” she said, “it is important that you get to know the world itself.” She waved a hand, and a piece of glowing parchment appeared and floated into my hands.
“A hero on a quest needs a map.” She sounded quite pleased with herself.
I studied the map for a moment and groaned. “How many miles is it to the princess’s kingdom?” I asked.
“A few hundred of what you call miles, maybe more,” she said dismissively. “But I believe in my champion. You will do fine.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a bum knee that’s taken me out of mixed martial arts training for the last year. I can’t hike across an unknown country and fend off the creatures you mentioned.”
She looked at my right knee. “I see the injury, but it is of no consequence. As a last favor, I can heal your wound.”
“Oh yeah?”
Celesta raised her right hand and murmured a few words. Her palm glowed bright golden, and she gestured me to come toward her. I took two apprehensive steps, freaked out and excited at the same time. She knelt before me and placed a hand on my knee. A warm sensation washed through my leg, and I felt a kind of electric current flow through me.
When Celesta withdrew, I tested my knee. “Holy shit!” I said and hopped up and down to test the joint. I backed up and tried a roundhouse kick, and to my surprise, I pulled it off perfectly. “Thank you, Celesta, thank you,” I said with many bows.
“You are welcome,” she said. “Escort the princess to her home, and you shall be returned to yours.”
She turned to leave, and I blurted, “Wait. How am I supposed to get to the tower, and when will I see you again?”
“There is a boat on the shore,” she said floating away from me. “We shall meet again once you have successfully finished your quest.”
She disappeared, and I glanced at Doughboy. “All right,” I said. “I guess we gotta do this shit. Let’s go.”
I practiced with the pizza shovel as we walked down a series of switchbacks leading to the rocky shore. Doughboy was enamored with my twirling skills, and he reached out like he wanted to give it a try, but that definitely wasn’t happening. The blade looked sharp as hell, but there wasn’t anything around for me to test it on.
The shoreline was as dead and lonely as the hill had been, and dozens of dead fish had washed up on the beach, but there were no birds around to eat them, nor did it appear there were any bugs.
Something had happened to this place, that much was clear. I thought about the creatures Celesta had mentioned, and I tried to envision a world with real monsters and real magic in it. I had seen a goddess. She’d enchanted my pizza shovel and brought to life a portion of dough, but I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of real monsters. Goblins and trolls were things of myth.
I glanced up at the gray clouds that had briefly parted and offered me a fleeting view of the ringed planet and reminded myself I wasn’t on Earth anymore. If I was going to survive, I needed to be ready for anything.
“Do you know what the craziest part is, Doughboy? Other than me talking to a piece of dough, I mean? It all feels real. I was hoping it was just a dream, but the sights, the smells, the wind even—it’s all so real.”
He padded over to a boat and turned toward me expectantly.
“How’s it look?” I asked. Though the goddess had enchanted my brain with knowledge of all known languages, Doughboy didn’t seem to have one. But it seemed he understood every word I said.
I joined him on the beach and looked over the boat. It was a small row boat, but it was perfect for what I needed it for. There were two oars inside it as well. I noticed a backpack sitting on the smallest and most forward seat and glanced around, wondering who it belonged to. I hadn’t seen another living soul, and there were no footprints leading to or from the boat.
I searched it and found hard bread wrapped in cheesecloth, along with a package of smoked meat. I also found a water pouch, poured some into my hand, and sniffed it. I smelled nothing, but I didn’t want to risk drinking it right then, so I decided to save it for an emergency.
“Jump in,” I told Doughboy, but he quivered and backed away from the water. “What?” I asked, trying to read his blobby face. “Are you afraid of the water?”
He nodded, then dramatically dropped to the ground and melted into a puddle.
“Oh, right. Flour and water. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”
Doughboy shook his head.
“Look, dude. If you are going to be a hero’s sidekick, you’re going to have to man up and get tough. You understand?”
Doughboy immediately straightened like a soldier and offered me a crisp salute. He couldn’t speak, but a squeaky fart noise followed his ten-hut.
“That’s better,” I said. “Now get the hell in.”
He leapt into the boat and sat at the very center of the middle seat. I untied the boat from the rock it was moored to and pushed it out into the water. I leapt in before my boots got too wet and nearly fell overboard when the boat lurched, but Doughboy shot out an arm like Elastigirl from The Incredibles and pulled me back in.
“Thanks, Doughboy,” I said and promptly glued my ass to the seat.
Doughboy jumped on my right shoulder, and I rowed against the tide. It took some doing to get out of the little bay, but eventually I managed to get us past the breakwater and into the wide-open sea.
The tower where the princess was being held was on a tiny island about a mile from shore. A fog hung on the water, thick and smelling of rotten fish, but I could still see the obelisk in the distance. It was at least seven stories high and so crooked I expected it to crumble into the ocean at any moment.
The closer I got to the tower, the more exposed I felt in my little boat. There was no one around, however, and only one window, which was all the way up at the top. No light shone from it, and I continued toward the tower at a faster pace.
I reached the rocky island, but there was nowhere to put in, so I paddled around the island until I found a rickety dock. I studied the base of the tower in search of a door. There was a small shack among the jutting stones that made up the island, and I wondered if there were guards hiding there, lying in wait.
Doughboy had had enough of the water, it seemed, because he leapt out of the boat onto one of the big gray stones. I climbed out as well, careful not to make any noise. Suddenly a roar ripped through the soft wind.
I looked up and nearly shit myself when I saw a 300 po
und green monster racing down the rocky path leading from the tower. My pizza shovel was still in the boat, so I cocked back with one of the oars, ready to cave the ugly bastard’s head in. He similarly raised a club as he charged toward me, but then Doughboy suddenly leapt and landed on the monster’s face.
The monster, which I quickly intuited was a goblin, tripped on a rock and went down hard three feet away from me. I tried to get a shot in, but Doughboy was now covering the goblin’s entire head, and the creature’s muffled screams suggested that whatever my dough wad was doing hurt like a son of a bitch. When Doughboy finally extracted himself from the goblin, I saw that he had eaten the creature’s entire head. Only a smoking neck stump remained.
“Holy shit!” I said in disgust and maybe a little pride.
Doughboy did a little dance, burped, and extracted the goblin’s skull.
A moment later, a horn blared from inside the shack, and two more goblins stormed out. I grabbed my pizza shovel, Doughboy leapt on my back, and together we charged. My heart was pounding from the encounter with the first goblin, and I was ready to kick some ass. These goblins were about five feet tall and not nearly as heavy as the first one, but they carried heavy swords that looked like they could do some real damage.
“I’ll take the one on the left,” I told Doughboy, and he somehow produced a little growl.
The goblins let out a war cry, and I roared right back at them. But they had the high ground, so I stopped and hunkered down, waiting for them to come to me. They jumped from on high, their powerful legs propelling them much farther than a human could leap. Doughboy sprang at the goblin on the right, and I readied my enchanted pizza shovel.
My opponent came down hard with a jagged sword, and I met the attack with a swing of the shovel. The sword was no match for my shovel, which broke the goblin’s weapon in half. The creature looked at me with horror in his beady little eyes, and I swung for the cheap seats and took its head clean off. It dropped at my feet almost at the same time as Doughboy’s opponent, and we rushed up the path to the shack.
I chopped down the door, ready to drop whatever appeared, but nothing emerged from the shack. A quick glance inside revealed it was empty. A set of keys hung from a nail on the wall by the door. I grabbed them and kept moving.
Doughboy and I ran up the path, which soon gave way to a flight of stone stairs leading up to the tower door. I expected goblins to begin filing out of the tower, but they must have figured it would be easier to defend the tower than meet me on the rocks below.
I hurried to the door, keenly alert for murder holes or other sneaky defenses, and tried the first key. It didn’t work, so I tried another. On the third try, I found the right one.
“All right, bro. When I open this door, you do your thing, okay?”
He morphed into the shape of a cat ready to pounce. I pulled the door open and ducked behind it. Two arrows flew out across the threshold, one going right through Doughboy without stopping. My little buddy leapt into the room, and surprised exclamations echoed inside. I peeked in. One goblin had Doughboy latched to its head, and the other was trying to pry him off his friend’s face.
I charged in and swung my long shovel. Like a giant pendulum, it sliced through the goblin’s back, cutting through thin metal armor, through bone and muscle, and painted the wall green The goblin crumpled to the floor, and I chopped its head off. I spun and sliced through Doughboy’s opponent’s right leg, cutting it off at the knee.
We continued up the winding stairs to the second level, and again Doughboy went up first to distract the defenders. I followed like before, and we slew another three goblins. On the third floor we found four more goblins, all skinny little bastards with crossbows, and I barely ducked behind the door to avoid being filled like a pincushion. They had to reload, so I burst from my hiding place and slashed the first goblin from hip to shoulder, opening him wide and spilling his guts, then I hacked through the second while Doughboy leapt on the face of the third. The fourth goblin jumped across the room and swung his big war hammer, and I barely got my enchanted pizza peel up in time to deflect the blow. Again the hammer came down, and I danced away from it, grabbed the shaft of my weapon in the middle, and spun it in a blur of motion. The goblin was confused by the attack, and when he swung at me again, I deflected the strike with my blade and slammed the butt end into the goblin’s face. He flew back with a screech, and I shut him up for good by slicing his head in two just above the pointy ear.
On the fourth floor we encountered a big fat goblin waiting for us. I left him to Doughboy and trotted up to the fifth level. There were two goblins up there, and when they saw me, one pointed and said, “His weapon is enchanted!”
“So is mine!” said his comrade, and he stalked toward me with grim determination, unsheathing a glowing sword.
The cowardly goblin who had spoken first ducked around me and bolted for the door. Rather than salvation, he found a growling lump of dough. Doughboy latched onto his face, and together they rolled back down the stairs.
I faced the goblin with the enchanted sword and twirled the pizza peel. He growled and stabbed with surprising speed, but my spinning blade easily sent it wide, and I countered with the shaft. He ducked under the blow and swung at my feet, but I stopped it with my blade. I used the long shaft of my weapon to pole-vault over the sword and slammed my feet into the goblin’s chest. He flew back and hit the wall hard but didn’t drop his sword. When the sword came in again, I hooked it with my crescent moon blade and sent if flying, then I slapped the butt of the shaft against his face and spun him around. I came down on him like a lumberjack chopping wood and embedded the blade in his back.
Doughboy joined me, and we continued up to the sixth level. I was a bit disappointed not to find anyone waiting for us up there. At the seventh level, a door awaited us. I knocked on it and called for the princess.
When there was no answer, I knocked again with the same result.
I tried a key that looked like it might fit. It worked, and I opened it wide enough to allow Doughboy to slip through like Mr. Stretch. I followed cautiously.
“Put the food on the stand by the door, you ignorant smelly beast!” said someone with a very abrasive and very bitchy voice.
The entry only extended six feet. I checked behind the door to my right, then turned to the left, where the small vestibule opened to the rest of the chamber.
“Didn’t you hear me?” said a woman, presumably the princess.
“I’m not a goblin!” I called.
I turned the corner and found a circular room with a small bed, a single dresser, one window, and a woman sitting with her back to me at a vanity. It looked like she’d been combing her hair.
Our eyes met in the mirror.
“Who are you?” she asked, not turning around.
“My name is Jake Baker,” I said proudly as Doughboy came to stand beside me and flexed his doughy muscles. “I’m here to rescue you.”
She turned slowly in her chair, and I saw the true extent of her beauty. Princess Evangeline was a knockout. She had blonde hair, which was long and straight and shimmering in the torchlight provided by two torches on the wall. Her eyes were a deep blue striking to behold, and her full, somewhat pouty lips were a soft pink that contrasted nicely with her milky white skin.
“Who sent you?” she asked, the tone only slightly less bitchy than how she’d first addressed me.
“The Goddess Celesta. She said you prayed to her to send a champion to rescue you.” I spread my arms wide. “Well, here I am.”
“Baker?” she said and scoffed. “I asked for a hero, a warrior, perhaps a knight in shining armor, not a measly baker.”
It was my turn to scoff. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Princess, but you’re going to have to settle for a baker with a badass halberd.”
“By the gods!” She tossed her head dramatically, then pointed at Doughboy. “And what in the nine hells is that thing?”
“That’s my sidekick, Doughboy,�
�� I said with a smile. “Say hello to the nice princess, D.”
He made a fart noise that sounded surprisingly like a greeting, and the princess snorted and turned back to the mirror.
“There is no way I am being rescued by a baker and a disgusting lump of flatulating dough.” She returned to combing her hair, completely ignoring us.
“Listen, Princess,” I said as I approached her, “I need to get back to my planet, and the only way the goddess is going to send me back is if I return you to your father. Like it or not, I’m your champion, so get your shit and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Gods!” she fumed and spun in her chair. “You speak like a pirate.”
“Yeah, and I fuck like one too. Let’s go.”
“How dare you use that tone with me, you uncivilized brute!” She shot to her feet and heaved out her chest indignantly. When I glanced at her tits, she crossed her arms.
“Is that all you have to wear?” I asked, eyeing her white dress.
“That is no question to ask a lady.”
“No, but it’s a good question to ask a special snowflake who is about to brave the wilds.”
“I told you, I am not going with you. So take your… your… whatever that thing is, and get out.”
“Are you being fucking serious right now?”
“Watch your mouth, peasant!” she said and drew back a hand as if to strike me.
“I dare you,” I said with a grin.
“Do not tempt me.”
“You know what you need?” I eyed her up and down. “You need to get laid.”
She swung, and I caught her right hand with mine. “I’ve seen it before,” I said and shook my head. “A pretty, young woman like you who has never had someone flick the bean. It’ll make a bitch crazy.”
She tried to punch me. I yanked her close to me, our arms between us in an X.
“Listen up, Princess, and listen good. I’m going to get you out of this tower and take you to your father in one piece. I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Her nostrils flared. She was fuming, and she was gorgeous.
Monster World Page 2