Milk & Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  I wanted in on the fun. Reaching into the bag, I felt something hard, smooth, and cylindrical in my hand. Excited, I pulled it out. And found myself looking at a bottle of shampoo. “What?”

  Walt grimaced. “You do have a little dragon goo right…” He pointed to his head and I yelped, reaching up to find the strands of my hair glued together into a thick, sticky ribbon over one ear.

  I glared at the stupid bag. “I’ve been disrespected by a magical artifact.”

  It was the story of my life.

  Diandra giggled.

  Reaching inside the bag, I pulled out the other artifacts. “I need to take these with me, but you can keep the bag. And this,” I handed her the shampoo. “I have my own special blend at home.” The thought that I might soon be home to use it made me smile despite having been dissed by the burlap bag.

  Stupid magic artifact.

  14

  Oh! Lip Balm!

  I’d been dreading the journey to the depot. Really dreading it. After trekking across Plex, being attacked by magical creatures and the weather, I was ready to leap into the great, blue void and fall to Croakies for a shower and a bag full of tacos.

  Unfortunately, all that would have to wait on logistics.

  It was one thing to drop me, Wicked, Slimy, and Hobs into the void. But adding the goat and dragon definitely created a kink in the process.

  At first, Diandra dug in her sandal-clad heels, insisting it couldn’t be done and that Adelaide and the dragon, who’s name I still did not know, would need to stay behind in Plex.

  But I’d given the dragon my word that I’d take her with us, so she could have a chance at a normal life. And I’d told Farmer Blue I’d bring his goat home.

  I was often a screwup. Sometimes I had no idea what I was doing. And I wasn’t the most gifted artifact wrangler there ever was. But I had control over one thing in my life.

  I could keep my word.

  So I always tried to do that.

  “You have to figure out a way,” I told the stubborn Seer. “Meditate on it, if that helps. But the dragon and Adelaide need to come with us.”

  Diandra threw up her hands. “Then you can’t use the depot,” she insisted.

  “Find us another way,” I insisted more insistently. I added a meaningful glance at the bag for good measure.

  Her face crumpled as she received the message I was sending. “I’ll consult the flame tonight.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding. Though I had no idea what that meant, specifically, I had a general idea it was something to do with throwing dust into a campfire. Pretty much everything a Seer did had something to do with that.

  It was weird. But if it worked, I was in full support.

  Later, as the two suns slipped down the horizon, I sat on a table-sized tree stump a few yards from the tiny hut and watched Diandra make her preparations.

  Walt came out of the hut, letting the mud-covered wood door close softly behind him, and approached me with a small bowl of something I hoped included chocolate.

  I wasn’t disappointed. The treat he handed me consisted of vanilla ice cream on top of a frosted brownie. It was melting fast in the heat so I dug in quickly. “Mmmm,” I closed my eyes in pleasure. “This is amazing.”

  Walt smiled. “The small one with long fingers took it from the bag.” Walt frowned. “For one who is stranded far from home, his needs seem very simple and…unwavering.”

  I laughed. “Pretty much all chocolate all the time. I think I was a hobgoblin in a prior life.”

  Walt laughed, dropping onto the stump beside me.

  “No, really,” I told him, pulling my hair away from my ears. “See how far they stick out? And how they’re kind of pointed on the top?”

  Walt examined my ears carefully. “You do have blue eyes.” He grinned, eyeing my empty bowl. “And an insatiable appetite for chocolate.”

  “Right?” I told him, grinning back.

  We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching Hobs and Wicked scamper around the dragon, playing hide and seek beneath her wings and tail.

  Slimy sat on the ground in front of the enormous reptile, his gaze locked on hers, and they seemed to be having a fairly extensive conversation.

  Warmth blossomed in my chest at the sight. “I wish I knew her name.”

  Walt turned to me, surprise lighting his face. “The dragon? That’s Kanish.”

  “Kanish? How’d you know?” Then I remembered he’d spent time with her in the cave.

  “Once I heard her speak, I understood dragonish, which is a mix of old Russian and an ancient Paleo-Indian dialect that originated in the Grand Teton mountains.”

  “Really?” I was fascinated despite myself. “Who knew?”

  “Well, I did. And I presume other dragons knew as well.”

  Apparently, the rhetorical question wasn’t a thing in Plex.

  Sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, the Seer settled her robes around her legs and pulled a small bag from within the folds. “She’s awfully young for a Seer.”

  “Don’t be fooled by her looks. Plexians can’t become Seers until they reach their one-thousandth year.”

  My eyes flared wide in shock. “A thousand?”

  “She’s probably nearer to fifteen hundred years old, I would guess.” He frowned. “The Seers who left were close to three thousand years old. It is a massive loss of history and knowledge that Plex will never recover from.”

  “Do you think the missing Seers are the reason for the instability in the Universe?”

  Walt gave that some real thought before answering. “It is possible. Probably even likely. The inner workings of the magical Universe depend heavily upon the proper use of the dimensional gate. Diandra tries her best, but with the others gone, things are getting missed. Accidental crossovers have tripled under her watch.”

  I nodded. “I’ve met some of the results.”

  “The Demons,” Walt nodded, grimacing. His gaze slid to the dragon and I knew he was thinking about her being trapped there. “Unfortunately, the accidents go both ways, as the loss of the Seers underscores.”

  “Could it be deliberate?” I asked Walt.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Could someone have been deliberately messing with the gate? Removing the Seers? Maybe even influencing dimensional magic to affect the Universe?”

  Walt shrugged. “It seems unlikely. Universal magic is volatile at best. One would never know how a certain action might be interpreted within it.”

  “What do you know about the Dark Rages?” I asked my friend.

  Walt shivered violently. I didn’t know if it was because of the falling nighttime temperatures or because of my question. “I wasn’t alive during that time,” he said. “But it hit Plex hard.” He glanced my way. “The Rages started here, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that. How did they begin?”

  He opened his mouth to respond and then closed it, growing pale. “They started with a gate malfunction and a new Seer. Barnabus Caeruleum was only twelve hundred years old, I believe.”

  “He was the Seer?”

  Walt nodded. “He accidentally opened the gate and it malfunctioned, locking open. A wizard and his magical spawn entered Plex and killed young Barnabus. The Wizard took over the operation of the gate and held it for almost a century, spewing evil across the dimensions, destroying the forces of good wherever he could find them. Enormous creatures clad in black iron uniforms stormed across the lands, thousands of them, slaughtering and imprisoning in the name of the Universe. You can imagine the result. Chaos, fear, and rage against magic and the Universe that it thrived on.” Walt shook his head. “When the Universe finally understood the genesis of the problem, it cracked down hard on Plex. Plexians were forbidden to leave. The gate was locked down, only working during pre-determined times for specific reasons. Millions of our citizens were slaughtered by the warriors on both sides who flooded our dimension, spewing deadly magics across the land. Plex
never recovered fully. Our water is no longer water in the sense that it once was. Much of our plant and animal life has died out and the ones who survived are changed in unfathomable ways. Plex was once a vibrant and powerful dimension, trusted by the Universe to control the best interests of all dimensions.” He sighed. “We are a shadow of what we once were.” Walt looked so sad, I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him close.

  “What happened to the wizard? Was he captured?”

  Walt frowned. “All we have are rumors. Some rumors say he escaped before Plex was locked down. Others say he slipped away in the night, hiding somewhere in Plex and escaping much later disguised as a creature with red eyes and a bad temper.”

  I thought of the Brahma bull and shuddered. That would explain a lot.

  We sat quietly after that, thinking our separate thoughts, listening to the Seer’s melodic chanting, and watching the light show from her flames and dust. Walt’s description of the Dark Rages was horrifying.

  I could see why the Universe had created the PTBs after that, to ensure it never happened again. But PTBs had been disappearing too. Or going rogue. And with the exact same scenario setting up that had caused the Rages before, I couldn’t help wondering if someone wasn’t manipulating events to send the magical world into chaos again.

  But if that was the case, who would it be? Who stood to gain the most from an eruption of fear and violence across the multiple dimensions?

  The Seer threw another handful of dust onto the fire and lifted her hands, placing them palms down above the flame. Her melodic voice filled the silence between Walt and me, and I relaxed as the sweet smoke from her meditation fire sifted toward us.

  My eyes were closing, and I was at the edge of sleep when an explosion rocked the silence.

  Beside me, Walt leaped to his feet and took off running.

  My eyes shot open. I stood, my gaze sliding to the dragon and my little friends to make sure they were okay. A soft scream drew my attention to the fire, where Walt was throwing dust from the ground onto the Seer, whose robe was on fire.

  She smacked at the flames in wild-eyed panic, fear turning her previously calm demeanor on its head. The dust wasn’t helping.

  I took off running toward the hut, diving through the mudded door and racing to the tiny kitchen. I grabbed the burlap bag and shoved my hand into it, praying it would work as proclaimed. My hand came out clutching a fire extinguisher. Running outside and screaming at Walt to stand back, I blasted the Seer with the extinguisher.

  Diandra covered her face with her arms, still screaming as the foam doused the last of the fire from her robe. The heavy white cloth hung in tatters from her slender frame, showing a scorched cotton skirt and blackened calves beneath. “Are you badly burned?” I asked, flinging the extinguisher aside.

  “I’m not sure.” She staggered back and fell to her knees, crying out as her flesh hit the ground.

  I looked at Walt, who just stood there, wringing his hands. “Help me get her inside.” I’d ask the bag for some balm for the Seer’s burns. And anything else I could think of.

  At that moment, I’d give almost anything for Florence Nightingale’s medical kit.

  “Demons!” Hobs screamed.

  The dragon surged to her feet, flipping around to roar a warning to the sky. The creature’s long, spiked tail barely missed us as Walt and I half-carried the Seer toward the hut.

  Just great! I thought crabbily. We didn’t have enough to worry about already?

  The dragon ran several steps and leaped into the air, roaring again as she pounded her wings and speared upward, flame shearing across the night sky.

  “Lay her on the couch,” I told Walt.

  Beyond the thin walls of the tiny hut, I heard the unmistakable cries of pain and fear that told me fighting had broken out.

  “Goddess keep Kanish safe,” I prayed quietly as I worked to pull the robes aside so I could assess the damage. Her legs had taken the worst of it. But her hands were also blackened and blistered from smacking the flames in an attempt to put them out. “I looked at Walt. “Get the bag.”

  He nodded and ran toward the kitchen.

  The door opened behind me. I spoke without looking up. “Hobs, you need to get Slimy and Wicked and bring them in here. We’re going to need to fortify this place somehow against the Demons.”

  The Seer moaned in pain, her head thrashing violently. I placed a hand on her arm in an attempt to soothe. “It’s going to be okay. We’ve got the bag.”

  Walt ran back into the living room and skidded to a stop, his eyes going wide. “Oh!”

  I gave him an impatient glance. “Walt, the bag? Hurry, she’s in pain.”

  There was a soft rustling of fabric, and someone knelt down beside me. “Burns?” asked a familiar voice.

  My head snapped around. Joy filled me and I gave a squeal, wrapping my assistant in a desperate but joyful hug. “You found us!”

  Sebille rolled her eyes. “Of course, I found you. I’m the daughter of the queen of the Fae.”

  I squealed again and hugged her tighter.

  Sebille reared back, dislodging my arms. “Now that I’m deaf from having you screaming in my ear…” She placed a hand above the Seer’s blistered calves, staring into the woman’s eyes. “This will hurt.”

  Tears slipped down Diandra’s face. “Thank you, Princess.”

  To my utter shock, Sebille didn’t correct the woman. Instead, she glanced at me. “Go help the dragon. She’s heading back, and she’s got three Demons on her tail.”

  I didn’t ask Sebille how she knew that. Nor did I ask how I was going to help since I was…well…me. I ran out the door and found myself standing in the dusty yard holding the sword artifact in one hand and a woman’s purse in the other. I frowned down at one and gripped the other tighter.

  Narrowing my gaze on the purse, I dropped it in the dust. My keeper magics were wonky at best in Plex.

  Sebille’s voice sifted through the door. “Get the horns.”

  “Huh?”

  Kanish roared a warning and lowered her wings, flattening out as she hit the ground and skidded, her enormous form leaving a wide, smooth trail in the dirt.

  I didn’t have time to see if she was badly hurt. The black shapes above my head were coming in fast, their evil gazes glowing malevolently through the night.

  I lifted the sword and ran toward them.

  The first Demon landed at a dead run, heading right for me.

  A small form flew out of the darkness, leaping onto the demon’s shoulders and grabbing its horns in long, spindly fingers.

  The Demon screamed as if in great pain. Hobs wrenched the horns violently, driving the monster to its knees.

  The second Demon hit the ground and half ran, half flew at me. I was ready. Lifting the blade, which glowed silver against the darkness, I swung as hard as I could. A warm, hard weight landed on my feet as the blade cut the darkness in a wide, horizontal strike and severed the Demon’s horns from its wide head with a single slice.

  The horrible creature screamed as if it was on fire and fell to the ground, thrashing wildly.

  I’d started to turn when the third Demon hit me, sending us both flying across the yard. We hit the dirt and all the air was knocked out of my lungs as the Demon’s weight crashed into me.

  Deadly-looking teeth snapped mere inches from my throat. I shoved a hand under the monster’s chin, my arm muscles straining to keep it away as my mind sifted through the available options.

  My magic rose up in a terror-fueled wash and sprayed out from my palm, unfocused and too scattered to do much but hack him off. But it did distract the Demon for a moment as I fought to get free.

  He roared, slapping a hand onto his face as my magic bit into his eyes. The glow died out of his terrifying gaze, and I knew I’d scored a hit.

  I tried to pull more energy forward, but I was too stressed. All I could manage was another unfocused wash of weak energy. I slammed a knee upward into the Demon�
��s belly and he arched away from me, still rubbing his streaming eyes.

  Shoving free of the Demon’s weight, I nearly managed my escape. But at the last moment, his big hand snaked out and grasped my ankle, the deadly claws digging painfully into my skin.

  Screaming in pain and fear, I kicked out with my other leg, clipping him in the jaw and snapping his head back. But it wasn’t enough to get him to release me.

  My hand scrabbled against the ground, looking for a rock or something to hit him with. Or even better, the sword I’d dropped when he’d barreled into me.

  My hand wrapped around something heavy and pliable. Looking at the purse in my hand, I wanted to scream my frustration. I pulled the bag close and, feeling ridiculous and inadequate, I pelted him in the head with the soft, cloth bag.

  He grunted at the first strike. That was when I realized how heavy the purse was. But not because it had been magically enhanced. It was chock full of stuff.

  The demon yanked me back by my ankle, his claws ripping my skin.

  I struggled, mewling in terror and desperate to get free. I did the only thing I could think to do. Reaching into the purse with a prayer that it was like the burlap sack, I thought of a weapon.

  My hand closed over a smooth cylinder and I tugged it out, spraying it into the Demon’s still streaming red eyes.

  The creature’s head whipped back and it sneezed.

  I looked at the canister and wanted to swear. Hairspray.

  “Okay Universe, you can stop messin’ with me any time now,” I screamed. I tried again and my searching fingers came up with a hairbrush.

  I threw it at him.

  A compact. I threw that at him too. It bounced off his hard, black scales and hit the ground.

  The Demon opened its mouth and showed me curved, knife-like teeth. “Looks like you’re outgunned,” he said nastily.