But to put your mind at ease, the destruction of Nimalys did not deflect the magical beam of energy in any way. The beam successfully made its way to Earth so Seeboth could finish his spell.
The white-hot bolt of light slammed into the full moon before lancing straight down into Princess Luscious.
Her back arched in shock.
Her body glared like the sun in a desert.
Her eyes spat tentacles of lightning.
The force of the event toppled Seeboth and he fell beside the altar, stunned.
Princess Luscious now burned with the power to unmake the universe.
44
CONVERGENCE
While Jeremy the Zombie brushed the dust from Jack’s head and shoulders and Jack undid the straps around each of Laura’s toes, Paul used the Singing Sword to slice away the last of the heavy bonds. When they had all finished their tasks, Paul offered his hand to help Laura step free of the cumbersome torture machine.
This time, Laura accepted.
“Thanks,” she said. “Now we’re even.”
Paul smiled. Things were finally looking up. “Let’s go,” he said.
The trio turned, only to discover that Paul’s smile had been premature. Things had begun looking downward once again, for a mass of Captain Head’s burly pirate bodyguards completely clotted the archway into the room. They had just fought their way through the cavern below and climbed a seemingly endless flight of stairs to get there, and they were not in a good mood.
Captain Head was not yet with them. Climbing so many stairs for a man of his girth would take a little extra time, but his bodyguards could get started without him.
Ready to fight, Jack scrabbled at his empty scabbard, only to remember that he had dropped his sword when he started climbing. “Wait!” he cried as the pirates began to surge inside. “Wait, don’t attack yet! Unarmed swashbuckler here!”
Jeremy the Zombie handed his severed arm to Jack. Jack brandished the limb without thinking until he saw the hand at its end clench into a fist.
“Whoa!” he cried, flinging the arm aside. “What are you doing? That thing could make me diseased!”
“My apologies, sir,” said Jeremy. “Since those pirates are about to make you dead, I thought it was better than nothing. Won’t happen again, sir.”
The four of them backed away from the advancing cutthroats. With only one sword between them, the situation appeared dire. Pushing Laura behind him, Paul braced for the coming attack — then Laura screamed.
It seemed odd for her to scream so soon because the pirates had yet to charge forward and begin the application of pain. Paul glanced at her to see what was wrong, and then he wanted to scream as well.
Zombies had swarmed through the hole in the wall and were streaming along the back of the chamber, effectively flanking them.
Pirates to the front.
Zombies to the back.
And nothing but a hole in the wall beside them leading to a very long fall.
“Well, this looks familiar,” Jack said.
The lead Zombie, a strapping fellow with larger, less decayed muscles than the rest, craned his head forward and bellowed like a Dragon. For a dead creature without working lungs, it was quite impressive.
All together, the line of pirates roared a battle cry. It, too, was quite impressive, effectively communicating their blood lust.
Surrounded and outnumbered, Paul, Laura, and Jack flinched. There was no way to brace for what was about to come, so they just flinched. Jeremy simply stood by, resigned as always.
“This is definitely gonna sting,” Jack muttered.
The lead Zombie lunged forward—
THUNK!
THUNK!
THUNK!
THUNK!
THUNK!
Five knives suddenly thunked into its side, dropping it to the floor!
All heads turned as one toward the breach in the wall. At first they saw nothing. Then they looked down.
There they saw Flicker, Warlord of the Fierce Flitterlings, standing framed by the full moon and looking impressive enough to warrant her own line of collectible figures. She arched an eyebrow at Paul.
“Is there a problem here, my lord? We do have our interests to protect.”
Blink the Poxie suddenly darted over her head and sounded a charge.
With that, the entire gang of Fierce Flitterlings surged through the gap in the wall and collided with the Zombies in a grand collision of flaring wings, flashing blades, and snarling teeth.
In the initial moment of confusion, Jack jumped forward and grabbed a sword from the hands of a distracted pirate.
“Hey,” said the pirate, “that’s me sword!” Then he pointed at Jack’s head and said, “And that’s me hat!”
Taking full advantage of the chaos, Jack plunged into the midst of the pirates, his sword whirling around him. The startled pirates momentarily fell back, opening a path through the arch.
“Go get the princess!” Jack said. “I’ll hold them here!”
Laura grabbed Paul’s hand and pulled him through the gap toward the archway. Paul followed her, pausing just long enough to clap Jack on the shoulder in thanks before racing up the coil of stairs beyond the arch.
Alone, Jack faced the pirates with a grim smile on his lips as he swished his sword through the air. “Okay, who wants some of this wrath…”
Unfortunately for Jack, the momentary distraction of the Flitterlings — which had made him feel ten feet tall and sword-proof — had passed. The pirates closed their ranks, blocked the archway once more, and charged him.
Realizing his tactical mistake, Jack stumbled backward and fled among the skirmishing Flitterlings and Zombies.
He passed Flicker as the warlord easily dispatched three Zombies herself using nothing but a lethal combination of punching, kicking, and flying. As Jack went screaming by, he had to admit it was quite beautiful — part dance, part hummingbird, part bone-breaking pain.
Jack scrambled over a pile of rubble, nearly stumbling over someone’s hand, and his passage dislodged a cascade of gravel. It hissed across a leather breastplate.
Demog’s chest.
Jack was too busy running to notice that one of Demog’s brass buckles had broken loose, not that Jack would have understood the significance of such a thing anyway. He also didn’t notice that something inside Demog’s chest cavity had begun slamming itself against the leather armor as if it were trying to escape.
Jack especially didn’t notice when the second buckle popped open.
45
NOT AGAIN
Seeboth could barely look at Princess Luscious, so brightly did she glow. Squinting his eyes and pulling his cowl down low, he picked up his fallen sword — still glowing green under a jittery sleeve of magical energy — and made his way toward the altar.
“What’s happening to me?!” Princess Luscious shrieked from the heart of the inferno.
“In a moment you shall explode with the force of a billion suns!” Seeboth cried exuberantly. “But it won’t hurt much, my love. I promise.”
He raised Judgment over his head.
“Stop!” Paul and Laura yelled together as they bounded onto the platform and faced the terrible ball of light on the altar.
Seeboth looked at them quizzically. “Why aren’t you dead?”
“Luscious! Are… are you in there?” Laura called, ignoring the dark wizard completely. “Are you all right?!”
Princess Luscious could see nothing but vague shapes through her cocoon of light, but she most definitely recognized the voice of her handmaiden. “Laura?! Laura, help me! Please!”
Paul marched toward Seeboth and began reciting his lines. “Unhand her, knave!”
“‘Knave’?” Seeboth rolled the word around in his mouth as if it tasted of bad fish. “How original.”
He gestured with Judgment and levitated Paul, just as he had done to Laura on that first night in Theandrea. “But, if you’ll excuse me, I have a world to unmake and a god to becom
e, so give my regards to the ground!”
He gestured again and Paul started to fly from the platform.
“No!” Laura wanted to cry, but then her racing mind thought of something much better to say. “Fiat… Fiat Oblivytum!”
A flash of green light circled Paul and severed whatever magic held him aloft. He crashed to the platform and skidded to the edge.
Seeboth wheeled on Laura, outraged. “You?! But how?!”
Laura sniffed, feeling fairly proud of herself. “Pretty standard counterspell, actually. Surprised you didn’t know it.”
Paul leaped to his feet and charged forward once again.
“Blast it!” Seeboth snapped.
He wheeled back toward Princess Luscious, hoping to finish the sacrifice quickly, but he had made the mistake of backing too close to the altar, and even though she couldn’t see him clearly, Princess Luscious could hear his voice. She lashed out with her foot, channeling all her fear and anger and outrage into the kick, and her kick subsequently channeled it all directly into his groin.
“Oopf,” was all he said.
Judgment clattered from his hands and Laura scooped it up. Hunched over and clutching his crotch, Seeboth staggered toward her. She panicked.
“Paul! Catch!”
She flung the sword at him.
Paul ducked and it barely missed his head.
The blade flew down the steps.
A voice said, “Dammit! Not again!”
There was a flash of green light.
There was a flash of red light.
There was silence.
One of the interesting things about being a magic book is the fact that I can travel through time. The spell is called “Flashback” and I use it only sparingly, for it can prove quite deadly to the flow of a story. Should one’s Inciting Incident and one’s Denouement ever meet accidentally, well, I’m sure you can imagine the narrative paradox that would result.
I am about to cast Flashback, but keeping everything I just said in mind, I will only be jumping back in time fifteen seconds, and I will only be moving us to the bottom of the stairs.
Please brace yourself. Sometimes the transition can be bumpy.
A hole ripped open in space and unleashed a deluge of putrid water. The flood splashed across the roof of the Shadowkeep, carrying with it one very large, very wet, very angry Demon.
Reaching up through the spray, Worrt waved his paw. The portal pinched shut and the disgusting torrent ceased. Spluttering, Worrt rolled to his feet. He had resumed his ten-foot stature and shook himself dry like an oversized hellhound.
A puddle collected around his feet.
He was in a foul mood.
“I hope somebody’s prepared to get their arse kicked for this,” he said to no one in particular.
He stood at the base of the stairs leading up to the sacrifice platform. Although he couldn’t see what awaited him there, the light of wild magic blazed into the sky. It could only mean one thing.
“Seeboth,” he growled as he started up the steps.
At that moment, a pinwheel of green lightning wrapped around the blade of a magic sword came spinning down the steps.
Right at him.
Too late did he realize what was about to happen.
“Dammit! Not again!”
With a flash of green light, the tip of the Judgment Blade touched Worrt’s chest and, with a burst of red light, the Demon’s body burst into a thousand pieces that vanished in every direction, scattered across the reaches of time and space.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Judgment’s blade embedded itself in the last step.
And now let us return to the previous timeline, already in progress.
As the flash of red light faded, Laura yelled, “You were supposed to catch it!”
“You threw a flaming magic sword at me!” Paul yelled right back. “How am I supposed to catch that?!”
“My power! Damn you — all my power was in that sword!” Seeboth raged.
That declaration got Paul’s attention. He turned toward the wizard and hefted his Singing Sword.
Seeboth frowned and muttered, “Perhaps I should’ve played that a bit closer to the vest.”
46
A HELPING HAND
A cylindrical shaft pierced the core of the Shadowkeep, plunging from its upper floors all the way to its foundation. A series of irregular stone steps spiraled along the inner wall and climbed in a clockwise fashion, the one way up or down the tower. Because these treacherous stairs had no railing, the only thing likely to catch anyone careless enough to fall was the ground.
Whooping with triumph, Jack dodged from the torture chamber and carelessly stumbled onto these stairs.
He began to race upward, the open shaft yawning to his right, and he made the mistake of carelessly leaning over to take a look. The moment he did so, he carelessly slipped on a loose stone.
And that’s how Jack fell from the stairs.
However, he managed to catch the edge of a step before the shaft completely swallowed him.
Unfortunately, it was the same step with the same loose stone that had tripped him to begin with, and now the loose stone gave way.
And that’s how Jack fell from the stairs a second time.
However, before the shaft completely swallowed him yet again, a hand clasped his wrist and jerked him to a stop.
Unfortunately, it was a hand attached to a severed arm. Jeremy the Zombie leaned over the steps, clutching his own severed arm in his good hand. He had extended the severed arm as far as he could in order to catch Jack before it was too late.
Though Jack dangled over a shaft fifty stories above the ground, he still recoiled from the undead hand and refused to touch it. “Diseases! Remember what I said about diseases?!” he cried.
“I realize falling to your death is not a disease,” Jeremy said as he hoisted Jack onto the stairs, “but it will kill you just the same.”
As soon as Jack found himself safely on the steps with his back pressed firmly against the wall, he immediately began to spit on his wrist and scrub it with his shirt tail. He nodded at the severed arm and said, “You really need to get that taken care of.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Jeremy said. “Besides, Zombies don’t feel pain. I’ll just sew it back on when I get the chance.”
The pirate bodyguards finally figured out where Jack had gone and came spilling onto the stairs after him.
“Huh, no pain… is that so?” Jack glanced from the pursuing pirates to Jeremy and said, “Look, don’t take this personally, but—”
Planting both hands on Jeremy’s chest, Jack shoved the Zombie down the stairs. Jeremy tumbled head over heels, dropping his arm as he went, and bowled over all the pirates just like a giant-sized version of the famous children’s game, Knock-Down-The-Pins-With-A-Ball. The horde of pirates and the lone Zombie all crashed out of sight.
And that’s how the pirates fell down the shaft.
Conveniently, their disappearance from the stairs cleared the way for Captain Head to come lumbering around the bend.
“Bravado!” he wheezed, sounding like a steam engine about to explode. “You won’t get ridda me that easy!”
“I’m really getting tired of this,” Jack sighed.
“Yer tired?!” Captain Head exploded. “Try luggin’ an iron skull up a hundred flights of stairs! Now, hold still and I’ll finally gut ye proper!”
And that’s precisely what he started to do.
47
THE SHORTEST CHAPTER IN THE BOOK
The third buckle burst open.
Then the fourth.
Then a screaming mass of furious shadows exploded from Demog’s chest cavity.
Best not to linger here.
48
FACING THE FACE OF THE FACE OF FEAR
Paul and Seeboth glared at each other across the expanse of the sacrifice platform.
The prince pointed the Singing Sword at Seeboth’s chest. “This end
s now.”
The dark wizard extended his arms to his sides and waggled his fingers in challenge. “I’m right here.”
Suddenly he pointed over Paul’s shoulder and cried, “Get him!”
Paul looked.
Although he had just fallen for what would one day be regarded as the oldest trick in the book, considering how young the world was and how new the trick was, the fact that it worked this time is somewhat less surprising.
Seeboth sprinted for the stairs.
Realizing his mistake, Paul lunged after him and tackled the wizard, sending the two of them rolling down the stairway.
Left alone, Laura raced to the altar.
“Quick, we have to get these off!” she said.
She and Princess Luscious strained valiantly against the chains that bound the princess, but their efforts had no effect.
“Hurry, Laura!” Princess Luscious said. “I give you permission to rescue me this time!”
“I’m working on it!” Laura squinted. “But you’re kinda blinding me!”
It was true. Princess Luscious continued to glare, ripe with all the terrible energies of uncreation awaiting their release. She tried to cover herself to no avail. “Sorry,” she said. “Just unlock me so we can go!”
“I’m trying! But there’s no key!”
“Ooh!” Princess Luscious pointed toward the stairs. Her arm beamed like a spotlight. “His belt! It’s on his belt!”
The key in question did indeed dangle from Seeboth’s belt, a belt that was currently bouncing down the stairs as Seeboth and Paul tumbled to the roof of the Shadowkeep. At the last second, the pair narrowly avoided cutting themselves in half upon the edge of the Judgment Blade. The weapon still stood tall and sharp, embedded deep within the last step.
Upon reaching the roof, Seeboth kicked Paul aside and lunged for Judgment’s handle… but the sword refused to budge.
BAP!
Judgment of a different sort, in the form of Paul’s fist, punched Seeboth in the face and sent the dark wizard reeling.
Happily Ever Awkward Page 18