by Robert Bevan
“An Old Testament God,” Dave added. “Full of wrath and insecurity and an insatiable desire to be worshiped.”
A seed of thought began to grow in Stacy's mind. A theory. She nurtured it for a moment, testing its plausibility, before saying anything aloud.
“Uncle,” Bingam honked out though his bleeding nose. “Can you see now that they're mad? No artifact is that powerful.”
Captain Righteous stroked his mustache, and the thick stubble growing on his prominent chin. “It does seem rather far-fetched. Surely, if an artifact so powerful existed, this world would have –”
“I know where the dice are!” Stacy blurted out. It was all too clear now. Almost obvious.
Everyone in the room turned to her expectantly.
Dave shrugged. “Well, where are they?”
“They're up Tim's butthole.”
The chamber was silent, at least until Bingam started crying.
“Sorry,” said Stacy. “I probably should have led up to that. Dave got me thinking when he was comparing Mordred to Old Testament God.”
“Thinking about Tim's butthole?” asked Julian.
“Not yet. I was thinking about the wrath and insecurity issues. Swap out a need to be worshiped for a desire to not be thought of as a complete dick, and you've got a pretty solid description of Tim.”
Dave and Julian lowered their heads, not wanting to speak ill of their recently deceased friend, but also not disagreeing.
“But Tim is also very smart, right?” Stacy hoped to assuage their guilt a little by giving them the opportunity to enthusiastically recognize something complimentary about Tim.
As she expected, they both looked up from the floor and nodded.
“Much too smart to show up at a meeting with Mordred with the bag of dice in his hand. He'd want to hide them somewhere safe. And of course there's the added bonus, should Mordred offer terms that Tim found suitable, of being able to live up to his part of the agreement by giving Mordred dice from his ass.”
Stacy paused to catch her breath.
“I don't disagree that Tim is – was – not above that level of pettiness,” said Dave. “So I concede that's a possibility. But I don't understand why you're so convinced it's the only possibility. He could have hidden them under a rock somewhere or something, and used his knowledge of the location as his leverage. Why would he bring the dice to the meeting? Mordred could have simply killed him and taken the dice.”
“Why agree to a meeting at all?” said Stacy. “What could Mordred have possibly offered that Tim would have been gullible enough to believe?”
Julian frowned. “I've been trying to figure that out since this whole mess started. I can't think of anything.”
“Exactly. Powerful as they are, the dice are worthless as a bargaining chip. If Tim were to hand them over, Mordred would have all the power, and no incentive to honor his part of the deal.”
“Is Tim's butthole still somewhere on the horizon of this story?” asked Julian.
“I'm getting to that.” Stacy spread her hands, getting ready for her big reveal. “Tim orchestrated this whole thing. He played us like fiddles!” After waiting a moment for gasps of realization which never came, she explained a bit more. “Julian and I intercepted an encrypted letter about a major deal going down on the Crescent Shadow. How did the rest of you know to come here?”
Dave scratched the back of his neck. “I was at Arby's. An old acquaintance of Professor Goosewaddle claimed he had recently acquired some merchandise.” His eyes met Stacy's. “He was bragging about some big deal going down at the Crescent Shadow.”
Stacy looked at Captain Righteous. “How about you two?”
The captain frowned. “I was attempting to arrest Katherine for breaking into a general store. One thing led to another, and here we are. She never told me why she suspected her brother would be here.”
“I'm willing to bet it had something to do with some bullshit clue that fell into her lap.”
“Actually,” said Julian. “She probably just beat it out of that guy we left tied up with her wolf.”
“Oh, right.” Stacy thought about it for a moment. “That's certainly a possibility. But still, it –”
“We get what you're saying,” said Dave. “We were played like fiddles. But what makes you think that Tim was the fiddler? How do you know it wasn't Mordred?”
Stacy smiled. “Because Mordred was the biggest fiddle of all. Tim set this whole thing up to draw one of the Mordreds out of hiding, so that we could have this opportunity to grab him. He arranged a meeting with Mordred, making a bunch of demands that he'd need to meet in exchange for the dice. When they meet, Tim gives him some bullshit location where he'd hidden the dice, and Mordred sends some minions off to retrieve them. In the meantime, we start showing up. Naturally, Mordred has spies on the island who spot us coming a mile away. He's been anticipating some kind of trap anyway. He thinks he's a couple of steps ahead of Tim, who he has locked in a cell. When Tim's dice information turns out to be bullshit, Mordred knows the whole thing was a setup to lure him out of hiding. He wants to show Tim that his ruse didn't work. Instead of us grabbing Mordred like we were supposed to, Mordred caught us. What Mordred didn't realize, however, is that he was playing right into Tim's hands.”
Julian frowned. “Are you forgetting the part where Tim got murdered?”
“All part of the plan.”
“So he sacrificed himself for us?”
“Aha!” said Stacy, perhaps overplaying it a bit. “That's precisely what he wanted us to think, which is the Timmest part of the whole plan, and how I'm certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that...” She looked at Julian expectantly for him to finish the sentence.
“That the dice are up Tim's butthole?”
“Exactly!” Stacy raised her hand for a high five.
Julian flinched like she was about to slap him. “I only guessed that because it's the end of the story that I've been waiting for. I don't actually have any idea what you're talking about.”
Stacy sighed. “Think about it. What happens if we catch Mordred, get Tim resurrected, and he craps out the dice for us.”
Dave's eyes widened. “He's a hero who was willing to sacrifice his life to save us all. He's fucking Jesus.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “And what happens if we let him stay dead? Which, let's be honest, he probably felt was a distinct possibility.”
Dave's jaw dropped open. “We'd be stuck here forever. It would be his final fuck you to the friends who'd given up on him.”
“Would he really sacrifice his life just to give us all the finger?” asked Julian.
Stacy shrugged. “What's easier to believe? That Tim's capable of the ultimate act of love? Or that he's capable of the ultimate act of spite?”
“Holy shit,” said Julian. “The dice really are up Tim's butthole.”
Chapter 7
Like the town Cooper had passed through to get to the desert, Totino's main industry appeared to be produce. Unlike in that other town, however, Totino's citizens seemed to be more focused in what they chose to grow.
For a mile north and south stood rows and rows of giant tomato plants, just like the one he and Chaz had fallen into. Towering stalks stood fifty feet high, supporting fruit ranging in color and size from green beach balls to shiny red minivans.
A network of bamboo pipes poured a constant stream of water on each of the plants and cast a shadow grid on the sand.
“What the hell do they need all these huge-ass tomatoes for?” asked Chaz.
“Giants,” said a half-elf perched atop the biggest, plumpest, reddest tomato in the forest. His hair was a peculiar shade of orange, as if it was once blond, but had become stained over the years with tomato juice. He wore similarly colored hemp overalls and thick red gloves which reflected the sun's light like plastic or patent leather. A hawk perched on his right hand, its talons digging into the glove's sturdy material.
“Go find the others,” he
said to the bird. “Bring them here.”
Ravenus landed on a neighboring tomato stem and squawked.
“Don't worry, big fellow,” said the half-elf. “She'll be back with the rest of my group.”
Cooper didn't know if that was meant to be taken as a threat or warning or what. “Listen, dude. We're not here looking for trouble.”
“Then none shall you find.” The half-elf smiled at Cooper. “It's harvest time. This one's ready.” He slapped the skin of the tomato he was crouched on top of. It smacked loud, like the hot nun's ruler against the priest's bare ass in Penance and Penetration IV: Hot Cross Buns. Wrapping his legs around the stem, he shifted from a crouch to a sit. He reached down into the satchel slung over his shoulder, pulled out a normal-sized green apple, and took a big bite.
Chaz ogled him like he was made of tits.
“Sorry,” said the half-elf. “That was rude of me.” He tossed the apple down to Chaz, who devoured it like a horse, not discriminating between the meat of the fruit and the seeds, stem, or core.
Ravenus squawked something at the half-elf, and he responded with something as meaningless to Cooper as the bird's squawk.
“I'm Chaz,” said Chaz through a mouthful of apple. “That's Cooper.” He looked at Cooper and nodded toward the half-elf. “He says his name's Fallon.”
“You do not speak the elven tongue?” Fallon asked Cooper.
“I do not,” said Cooper. “I am one who...” What was the most polite way to put it? “... prefers the company of women.”
Fallon looked at him quizzically, then at Chaz. “So I suppose that makes you Ravenus's master?”
“Ha!” said Cooper. “He's a fucking bard. The bird could kick his ass. Ravenus belongs to my friend Julian. He's up on the flying island thing.”
“Oh my,” said Fallon. “Your friend is a wizard of the Crescent Shadow? I saw it not long ago, and wondered if it had anything to do with your unusual arrival here.”
“He's more of a prisoner there. We were too until we escaped.”
“How exciting. You must tell me more.”
Chaz glared at Cooper. “Or maybe less.”
Now that he thought about it, perhaps telling a complete stranger that they were escaped convicts wasn't the brightest idea in the world.
“You must be starving after an adventure like that,” said Fallon. “I wish I had more to offer. We don't get many travelers coming in from the desert. Perhaps the others will have more when they arrive.”
Chaz swallowed his last bite of apple, having left nothing to waste. “You mentioned something about giants?” It was an obvious attempt to change the subject, but Fallon didn't seem to mind.
“That's correct. We grow these huge tomatoes specifically to trade with a tribe of frost giants to the north.”
“Are these frost giants proportionally as large to us as these tomatoes are to the more standard variety?”
The half-elf laughed. “Gods no! Lest the world would flood every time one of them took a piss. We grow them like this mainly for convenience.”
Cooper squinted at the big ass tomato the half-elf was sitting on. “What's so convenient about a four-ton tomato?”
“It has challenges, for sure. But those very challenges are a blessing on the road. A group of hungry bandits might run out from the forest, snag a few sacks of normal tomatoes, then run back into the trees. They're far less likely to bother a cart hauling one huge tomato like this. They couldn't possibly hope to move the whole thing, and trying to cut it in a hurry only makes a big mess.”
The hawk's return, along with the growing rumble of wooden wheels, meant Fallon's friends had been located and were approaching to harvest this tomato.
The group that arrived was no band of gangly peasant tomato farmers. They looked like a team of commandos, musclebound and wielding spears at least twice as tall as they were. The spears had upward-pointing hooks alongside the tips. Cooper supposed that was for double stabbing power. About a dozen in all, they were made up of humans, half-elves, and two half-orcs. Each of their non-spear hands held a lead rope to guide the beast that accompanied them. It looked like some kind of eight-legged dinosaur in a black leather gimp mask, and was pulling a wide empty cart. Two burly dwarves flanked either side of the cart, wielding weapons that Cooper couldn't quite make out the purpose of. They were like padded shields, but mounted crookedly on poles.
When the two humans leading the group made eye contact with Cooper and Chaz, the procession came to a halt.
Cooper and Chaz looked at each other. Chaz's face seemed to mirror Cooper's thoughts. They were fucked.
Fallon drew a sword from a sheath on his back. It wasn't a particularly intimidating-looking weapon in its own right, but with a dozen club bouncers and a huge lizard monster at his back, he could have pulled out his dick and it would have had the same effect as if he were to pull out a grenade launcher.
Cooper farted long and loud, like a foghorn. Nobody moved. They just stood there, mesmerized and confused, as if unaccustomed to beginning battle this way. While everyone was transfixed on his fart, he formulated a plan in his mind. When it was done, he shared it with Chaz.
“Run!”
He grabbed Chaz by the arm and bolted deeper into the tomato forest. Chaz could only keep Cooper's faster pace for so long before he tripped and fell. Cooper looked back. Their would-be captors were out of sight. But he had his doubts as to whether they'd lost them for good.
Ravenus flapped down and perched on a tomato stem.
“Ask him how far behind us they are.”
Chaz and Ravenus exchanged some gibberish and squawks, then Chaz turned to Cooper.
“He says they haven't moved.”
Cooper nodded. “Fuck. They're letting us wear ourselves out. They're smarter than I thought.”
“Maybe they're not –”
“IN POSITIONS!” The command came from the direction Cooper and Chaz were running toward.
Cooper and Chaz crept forward as quietly as possible. Cooper wasn't the stealthiest person in the world, but the sand helped to soften his footsteps. As they got closer, Cooper might as well have been stomping on crisp autumn leaves for all the difference it made. The men's grunts drowned out whatever noise Cooper's feet could have ever hoped to produce.
It was a similar arrangement of men, cart, strange weaponry, and even stranger masked dinosaur thing, to the one they'd just left.
The men with the long hooked spears stood in a wide circle around a tomato stalk, their spears pointed up at a skinny guy sitting on the branch above a tomato. On the spears' hooks, a circular net made of thick hempen rope was suspended under the tomato. Four dwarves stood underneath, with their padded shields raised up high on their poles.
“Get ready!” said the skinny guy, brandishing a small serrated sword similar to the one Fallon had drawn. “Here it comes!”
He lay flat on the branch, hugging it with one arm and sawing at the stem with the other. When the last of the fibers snapped, the enormous fruit fell into the waiting net. The men grunted as they struggled to lower the tomato down far enough so that the dwarves could bear some of the burden. Together, they hefted the tomato onto the cart.
After a short break to catch their breath, one of the spearmen slapped the dinosaur above its hind-most left leg, and the procession started moving.
“They got distracted by the tomato,” Cooper whispered. “But they'll be hunting us again soon.”
Chaz shook his head like an asshole. “Follow me.”
Cooper followed him deeper into the tomato forest until the stalks gave way to a bustling little town with uniformly strange buildings. They looked like log cabins, but the logs, while familiar-looking, were unlike any tree Cooper could recall. The peaked roofs were made from strips of that same red leather or plastic that Fallon's armband was made of.
Cooper stared at the roof of the nearest building. “What the fuck is that?”
“Tomato skins,” said Fallon, walking out from t
he forest of tomato stalks behind them. “We grow a number of different varieties of tomato here. The ones we ship off to the frost giants are bred for flavor. The ones you see in front of you, naturally, are bred for construction. The stalks are tougher. The skins are more weather resistant, and the paste mixed with sand makes for a wonderful sealant.”
“Did you follow us here?” asked Chaz.
“Of course I did.” Fallon turned to Cooper. “You shouldn't feel so embarrassed about farting. Everyone does it.”
“I'm sorry,” said Cooper. “We thought you were going to kill us.”
Fallon smiled. “We thought the same. That thing was ripe.”
“Listen,” said Chaz. “Can you tell us how to get back to Cardinia?”
“My, but you are a long way from home.”
“Longer than you know.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave? You've only just arrived. Come and join me at The Frothy Tankard. I'll buy you a drink in exchange for your tale.”
Cooper appreciated Fallon's style of getting right down to business, but he found one drink to be kind of a lowball offer.
“Two drinks each, and Chaz will give you some tail.”
“What?” said Chaz. “I don't think that's –”
“Come on, man. You're a bard without an instrument. This is a chance to make yourself useful again... kind of. Take one for the team.”
“I most certainly will not –”
Ravenus squawked something, and then everyone started talking in gibberish again.
We have no time for this. We must make haste to Glittersprinkles Grove. My people have been too long without a leader. I fear for their safety.
“Sorry, guys,” said Cooper. “Nabi's being a buzzkill. She insists on going to a place called Tittywhistle Cove... Or something like that. I may have been off by a syllable.”
“Well, I suppose it's rude to stop at a town and not support the local economy by visiting the local pub,” said Chaz, suddenly interested in being useful. “One drink won't delay us by much.”
Fallon's face turned pale as he gawked at Cooper. “Did you mean Glittersprinkles Grove?”