by Dante King
“Ooooh,” Enwyn said, “that sounded like it hurt.”
The figure nearest to me rolled over, and I uttered a cry of recognition. Even in the dim light cast by the grubby lanterns hanging on their hooks, I would have recognized that flyaway mustache anywhere.
“Igor!” I said. “What in the name of hell are you doing here?”
Igor Chaosbane, my first official War Mage Games sponsor and the Rune Mage responsible for helping me and my frat brothers secure our dungeon, cast a bloodshot eye up toward me. I figured he was trying to cast two eyes at me, but his left eyeball seemed to be having its own party and was currently revolving slowly in his head. The shabby mage gave himself a sharp slap on the side of the head, and the rotating eye snapped back into position.
“By thunder,” he croaked, “if it isn’t Mr. Mauler! Here, give me a hand, lad, I find myself a bit unsteady on my feet. Must have been something I ate.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said as I helped Igor to his feet and had a closer look at him. “Although, it’s probably only true if you’ve started eating things through your nose.”
Igor’s mustache usually looked like it had been torn off, thrown into a tumble dryer for a day, and then stuck back onto his lip upside down with maple syrup. Tonight, however, was the first time that I had ever seen it looking quite such a bright shade of powdery pink.
The pot-bellied mage, wearing his standard brown duster, crossed his eyes and tried to look down the end of his nose. His eyes, which were the same dark and intelligent variety as his cousin, the Headmaster of the Academy, wobbled this way and that in a way that made me feel slightly nauseous.
“Ah, I see what you’re getting at,” he said. “The powder. Yes. Pink. Hm. Yes, we may have imbibed just a smidge too heartily. Though, in my defense, I was merely an innocent passerby when my dear cousin here reached out of the crowd and asked me whether I would like to join him for a ‘shady or two.’ Is that not correct, cousin?”
The second figure, muttering and murmuring to himself, rolled over and hauled himself up to his full height. His full height, I saw, was considerable.
“Mort,” I said, shaking my head, “look at the fucking state of you.”
Mortimer Chaosbane was a bounty hunter, Chaos Mage, and yet another member of the infamously loose Chaosbane clan. When I had first met the gangly albino, he had struck me as the sort of quiet, well-mannered psychopath who is all very polite right up until the moment he sawed your head off so that he could wear it as a hat. However, he had been one of the crew that had accompanied me on the mission to take out three criminals and harvest their souls so that I could talk to my father. He was a formidable warrior. He also happened to be the proud owner of perhaps the most ludicrous facial hair in Avalonia, a pair of white-blonde mutton chops that were last in vogue in about 1860.
During our time together, I had managed to open Mortimer up to the delights of the world around him, showing him that he could let his hair down every now and again. People, I had tried to convince him over many jugs of wine one evening, did not have to be divided into those he could kill or capture and those he couldn’t kill or capture. Life could be about more than just bounties that needed to be collected.
Judging by the condition of the albino standing and swaying in front of me, with pink powder encrusted around his lips and nose, Mort had taken that sentiment and run with it. With his milk-white skin and pale, almost invisible eyebrows and hair, the bounty hunter looked like a clown or a mime that had tried to apply their make-up with a shotgun.
“Justin Mauler! How splendid to see you,” Mort said, holding out a long-fingered hand and managing to shake mine on the fourth attempt.
“Yeah, good to see you too, Mort,” I said.
“What in the name of all the gods that matter have you two recalcitrant dingbats been doing?” Enwyn asked bluntly. “Clearly, you’ve come from Powder Lane?”
“Enwyn Emberskull,” Igor said, in a voice so charming and oiled that it juxtaposed starkly with the bloodshot eyes and unkempt soup strainer. “You are a queen and a vision that lights up this murky night.” Igor sighed heavily, sending a plume of pink powder into the air. “Not only that, but you are quite correct, we have been in Powder Lane.”
“What was with the forceful ejection?” I asked.
“Hmm, if I corral rolecectly—recall correctly, I should say—the poltergeists that offer succor to those in Powder Lane are to blame for our dismissal. I think they were of the opinion that dear cousin Mortimer and I were a hazard unto the general public.”
I looked over at Mort. The gangly Chaos Mage was staring at one of the grimy lanterns and giggling quietly to himself. His eyes, in the dim light of the oil lamp, looked like kaleidoscopes.
“Yeah, hard to see why they would have thought that,” I said.
“My thoughts precisely,” Igor said. He pulled out a little wooden pipe, which was of the style known as the bent bulldog, and began puffing away at it. In defiance of the fact that he hadn’t lit it, the pipe began to emit clouds of yellow smoke that smelled strongly of burning hair. “They summoned those vexatious safety officers that patrol the Lane,” Igor continued thickly through the cloud that partly obscured him.
“Safety officers?” Enwyn asked.
“Fiends in humanoid shape!” Mortimer piped up dreamily.
“As my cousin says, fiends in humanoid shape,” Igor said. “They are stout fellows, trolls and werewolves mostly, who wear armor and say that they are there to ensure that everyone partakes of their chemical goods in a safe and responsible way.”
“Fiends,” Mort said ruminatively.
“What they really are is blasted bigots with inflated egos, who won’t let a couple of upstanding gentlemen such as ourselves enjoy our PPP—that’s pickled python pounce—in the manner that we deem necessary!”
“Were you a little exuberant?” I asked delicately.
“Perhaps, but what’s wrong with a little exuberance? It shows a zest for life. Exuberance is totally subjective anyway. Why, one man’s bread and butter is another man’s dog poo sandwich!”
“Exactly how exuberant were you?” Enwyn said. She directed the question at Mort, but the albino’s brain was obviously off playing space cadet on some distant planet somewhere.
“Oh, they were exuberant, sugarpie!” came a female voice from behind me. “Weren’t they just. If, objectively of course, you call stealing a horse and carriage, crashing it into the middle of an ornate fountain, and trying to set it on fire exuberant. If they’d been any more exuberant, they would have been gushing blood from the ears!”
I turned around to meet the owner of this new voice.
A woman had stepped through the barrier that apparently divided Nevermoor and Powder Lane. She was tall and slender as a willow switch, with bright pink hair that she had tied up into two matching pigtail buns at the back of her head. Her eyes were large and liquid, dark and almond-shaped, so that she reminded me somewhat of a character from Attack on Titan. She wore a pair of high-waisted trousers, tucked into practical yet stylish knee-high leather boots. The cut of the trousers complemented her long legs and amazingly plump ass. My eyes were drawn upward until they stopped at a thin strip of stomach that divided the pants and the cropped baby blue sweater that she wore over the top half of her body.
Well, who might this new arrival be? my brain couldn’t help but wonder.
Chapter Four
“You make it all sound so lowbrow,” Igor said in an aggrieved tone to this pink-haired, blue sweatshirt-wearing newcomer with the breathtaking pins.
There were holes dotted over the woman’s baby blue sweater. They might have been a fashion statement back on Earth, but in Avalonia, the charred holes spoke of a woman who was either a careless smoker or who had a penchant for corrosive chemicals and naked flames.
“Uh, sorry to be rude, but who in the world are you?” Enwyn said. In an aside to me, she added, “And do we really want to be caught up with Igor Chaosbane a
nd his buddies when we have pressing business to attend to? Don’t forget Janet.”
The woman, whoever she was, clearly had quick ears because she looked around at us and said, “Janet? Was that Janet you said? As in the daughter of the once high and mighty, now fallen from grace, Idman Thunderstone? That Janet?”
“I… Uh, yeah, that’s right,” I said. “Do you know her?”
“We actually just met briefly only half an hour or so ago,” the pink-haired woman said. She was gazing dreamily about her with those big, dark eyes of hers. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was on the same gear as the two Chaosbanes and was just pulling my leg.
“You saw her, did you?” I asked. “A tall blonde, fit bordering on the muscular, with glacial blue eyes?”
The stranger’s head revolved sedately to face me. It was obvious to even the sharpest intellect that here was one of those bohemian beauties that spent their days swanning through life with their head in the clouds, carried by their looks and natural charm. She smiled at me, in a way that sent Justin junior to stirring in the depths of my boxers. She had a very pleasant smile; enigmatic and soothing all at once.
“What the fucking hells have you been smoking?” she asked me in an unruffled voice. “And can I have some?”
The willowy female reached behind her ear and pulled out a black cigarette. There was no way that the cigarette could have been hiding behind her ear, but there it was all the same. She put it in between her lips, which were painted the same shade of powder pink as her hair—and as the drugs that coated the faces of the two Chaosbanes, funnily enough. She touched her index finger to the end of the gasper and made that classic motion with her thumb, as if she were cocking a pistol. The cigarette glowed into life. It smelled like cloves. And pot.
“Janet Thunderstone is a small, athletic brunette with lovely brown eyes, silly,” the woman said. “Eyes that are almost as nice as mine, but not quite. You have nice eyes; did you know that?”
She struck me, simultaneously, as being a harmless airhead and a complete fucking mastermind. It was a thoroughly intoxicating combo that left me feeling off balance. Her conversation was so all over the place that it was impossible to guess where her mind really was.
I gave myself a little mental shake.
“So you really do know Janet?” I said.
“Know her? I know of her. I like her. My amusing cousins here introduced me to her when she hailed them on the street. They had just snorted about two grams of PPP each when she came over and managed to make the introductions before their silly little minds went walkies.”
“Wait,” Enwyn said, “these two are your cousins?”
The woman cocked her head and picked at a hole in her sweater. She was the very definition of shabby chic. She could have fronted a rock band; she had that sort of devil-may-care glamor to her.
“Of course, Enwyn Emberskull—I know who you are, sugarplum, Reggie never ceases singing your praises.”
“You’re a Chaosbane?” I said, quietly stunned. Now that she mentioned it, those eyes did have that same dark, brooding, intelligent roguery about them.
“Yes, yes, yes, another Chaosbane, another member of the dream team,” Igor said.
“The name is Leah Chaosbane,” the woman said, extending her hand out to myself and Enwyn, “and it’s just the loveliest pleasure to meet you both.” Her dark eyes danced over my face. “Especially you, Justin Mauler, what an absolute treat for a gal!”
I looked at Mort, who had drifted over to join the conversation.
“What happened to you then, man?” I asked, patting the gangly bounty hunter-cum-hitman on the shoulder. “Last time we met, you were a dude who barely dabbled in anything stronger than coffee. Now look at you. You look like Robert Downey Junior back in the good old days.”
“I must admit that, after the night on the grog with you, Justin, my inhibitions have loosened somewhat,” Mort said in his quiet, polite voice. His eyes had settled down from the blurring mess of colors that they had been only a few moments before and were now the nice light red color of Igor’s.
Igor put an arm around me, and I was engulfed in that unique burning chemical factory smell of his.
“You did the world a favor, Justin, old chap,” he said. “Getting my cousin Mortimer to loosen up, well, that’s a fine and a good deed that’s bound to lead to good karma. I know that I wasn’t the only one in the family to be more than a little worried about some of the behavior he was exhibiting.”
Igor pulled a tiny comb out of the pocket of his duster and ran it through his eyebrows. He attempted to tame his lip-slug with it, but the teeth of the comb shattered at the first run through. Igor replaced the broken comb in his pocket, leaving a few of the teeth tangled in his mustache. Then he retrieved a small brown bottle out of his pocket. He dripped some pungent-smelling liquid into the palm of one hand, stowed the bottle, rubbed his hands together, and patted his face.
“Aaaah,” he sighed. “Much better. Fresh as a daisy on a summer’s day.”
“Why are you putting on aftershave?” Enwyn asked. “Hot date?”
Igor looked at her, surprised.
“Aftershave?” he said. “No, no, my dear. Toad urine. Soaks through the pores of the face and imbues the mind with an unparalleled keenness.”
Enwyn made a face.
“Now, as I was saying,” Igor said, turning to me. “Yes, you did a very good thing for my cousin. The family was worried about him. Now, look at him, as free as a bird and as tight as an owl!”
Yeah, I thought, a homicidal assassin on psychedelic drugs? What could possibly go wrong?
“Look,” I said, feeling that if I wasn’t careful I was going to get bogged in a quagmire of inescapable Chaosbane banter and madness. “We have to go. If you’ve seen Janet, it’d be super helpful if you could give us some idea as to where she might have gone.”
“Why tell, when one can show, hm?” Leah said. She pointed at me. “You have an order?”
“An order?” I asked.
“The pixie dust scroll,” Enwyn said.
“Oh. Yeah, I do,” I said, holding up the scroll.
“Well, slip it in, sugarbutt, and let’s head back down Powder Lane, hm?” Leah suggested. “We’ll have Janet all boxed up with a bow on in next to no time.” She winked at Enwyn and me. “We might even have time for a cheeky celebratory cosmic cocktail.”
“Oh, I love those,” Enwyn said.
“Of course you do, you luminous honeykitten,” Leah said, taking Enwyn’s arm in hers. “You’re a woman of taste,” and she gave me a meaningful look.
I turned back to the bung hole and, without further ado, slipped the tightly furled scroll into it.
The slip of paper disappeared. There was a pause. Then the entire surface of the barrel stack began to shimmer and ripple.
“That’s our cue, dear companions!” Igor said loftily.
“Aren’t these safety officers, or whatever they’re called, just going to sling your cooked asses straight back out again?” I asked as I stepped up to the strangely warping surface. It was like staring into a horizontal pool, or a melting mirror.
Igor patted me on the back, as if my lack of faith in his sobriety was endearing in some way. “Heh, the odds are long, but they can ruddy well try.”
With that confidence-boosting comment, I led the way through the portal. I was followed by Enwyn and the three members of the ever-growing Chaosbane clan.
I didn’t know what hell awaited us in Powder Lane, but I was fairly confident that going in there with three Chaosbanes was going to be on par with walking into a firework factory juggling a trio of burning emergency flares.
Stepping through the portal was a little like walking through a waterfall or a beaded curtain. There was a change in the texture of the air; a resistance as insubstantial as mist pressed against my forehead. Then, with remarkably little fuss, I was standing in the middle of a cobbled street which snaked away ahead of me.
A gasp from beh
ind me told me that Enwyn had followed me through. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her standing there, looking around with wide eyes at the entirely different street that we now found ourselves in.
“Oh my…” she said slowly, her eyes flitting around. “Oh my…”
“Yes indeedy,” Leah Chaosbane said, coming up to stand next to me and drape a companionable arm around my shoulder in the manner of an old friend. “It’s quite a sight, isn’t it? Hits the senses like a runaway bull does Powder Lane.”
I wasn’t too sure what I had really been expecting, but the reality of the place that greeted us was something along the lines of Willy Wonka’s factory blended into Diagon Alley with a liberal sprinkling of high-grade acid and Quaaludes.
It was a cobbled street which, at this time in the evening, was lined with Dickensian lamp posts burning in various shades of yellow and orange. The lane was bordered by shops selling all sorts of merchandise—and I am talking about all sorts of things. Across the road from where we now stood was a shop window proudly displaying penis pinatas. They were levitating inside the window and ejaculating candy.
“When would you ever need one of those?” Enwyn said from over my shoulder.
“Oh Enwyn, you silly old thing,” Leah said. “No one ever comes to Powder Lane because they need anything. People come to this mad chemical melting-pot because they want something.”
“My cousin speaks wise words—which are actually quite a rare commodity in this place,” Igor said musingly. “Every single person who uncovers the secret of Powder Lane comes to visit with one thing in mind: getting as sozzled as possible.” He extracted a small envelope from out of the pocket of his duster, removed a circular biscuit that looked a lot like a communion wafer, and popped it into his mouth.
“What’s that?” I asked as Igor crunched away and looked around with a benevolent eye at Powder Lane.