Bob the Mage
By Frederick Key
(Although He Probably
Regrets It)
Chapter 1
Tegora! Land of stone cottages and whitewashed manors!
Kingdom stronghold of Maximo VII (may his cows never run dry), the wise and
powerful! Land of loaves and fishes! Milk and honey! Wheeling and dealing! Null
and void!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The brochures
make it sound pretty.
If I had to pick a time and place
where things really got bad for me, it would probably be there in Tegora one
brisk afternoon in early autumn. It was a typically pleasant day, the sun perky
in the sky, sewers sloshing along toward the reservoir, merry pigeons running
for their lives from hungry townsfolk, and I doing some conjuring tricks on a
street corner, earning coppers and derision from the locals. I had not eaten in
days, but for the odd crust of bread from the street and the odd pile of pork
chops pilfered from the nearby abattoir.
“Ho ho!” laughed the twenty or so
townsfolk as they watched me conjure a purse from thin air. “Ha ha!” laughed
the large man whose purse it was. “Chuckle chuckle!” laughed the mob as it
chased me through town.
This might seem like a tight spot,
but I’m used to being chased and frankly I’m pretty good at it. I turned some
corners swiftly, ducked through some alleyways, doubled back under a moving
cart, cleared some fences, shrieked as I saw the mob standing in front of me,
cleared the fences again, shinnied up a drainpipe, and broke into a house. As I
heard the thundering boots of the mob pass by below I was so frightened I could
barely stuff my pockets with valuables.
Altogether, though, I was feeling a
bit smug. Ol’ Quicksilver Bob had escaped
again!
When the mob burst into the room,
my mood did dampen a little, I fear. Tegoran mobs, I find, are particularly
sticky.
I was dragged down the stairs and
into the streets. They made quite a public spectacle of me. I don’t mind being
a private spectacle, but I draw the line at anything public. And yet there I
was, now bound and gagged to prevent me unleashing powerful magicks, being
pulled along to the River Pockle. I hoped that they didn’t mean to throw me in,
despite the comments I heard like “Let’s throw him in to the River Pockle” and “The
River Pockle is what we should throw him into.” I didn’t mind the drowning;
rather, I was afraid I would not drown, that river being so thick with sewage.
Any who survived contact were considered forever unclean, with good reason.
Suddenly a guardsman of the city
appeared before the crowd, planting his poleaxe on the cobbles. “Halt!” he
yelled.
“Huh?” said the mob.
“Who is that?” yelled the
guardsman, pointing to me.
“Who is what?” muttered the crowd,
shuffling between me and him. Mob dunking is illegal in Tegora.
The hulking guardsman shoved his way
past and lifted me by the ropes, which chafed. “Him.”
“Oh, him,” said the mob.
I made “Mm! Mmm!” noises.
“What’s his crime?” asked the guardsman.
The large man whose purse I had
swiped stepped forth. “He took my purse! It was full of gold!”
The guardsman ripped off my gag,
barking, “Is this true?”
“Liar!” I cried. “Five coppers and
one lousy silver!”
That got me a cuff on the head, and
that woozy sort of feeling, and as I faded and floated around consciousness I
was dragged off to jail.
I awoke to the delightful sound of
a man being kicked in the ribs. It seemed decidedly less delightful when I
realized that the ribs being kicked were my own. “Wake up, peon!” cried the
guardsman whose foot was working so diligently.
I was in a stone cell with a window
the size of your fist. From the red daylight sneaking in I guessed it was
sunset. My hands were untied. I looked up at my guardsman companion and his
seven pals behind him.
“Uh, how may I be of assistance?” I
asked.
“Time for your trial.”
“What, before dinner?”
“Why waste food?”
That concerned me. I began to
slowly crawl to my feet, then suddenly leaped up, waving my arms violently and
shouting the magic word that causes a blinding flash of light. I figured I had
a slight chance of getting by the solid wall of humanity if they were surprised
and dazzled. The problem with that spell is that I always forget to close my
own eyes. When my sight returned I found I had wandered into the hall and was
surrounded by eight guardsmen who had closed their own eyes.
“I hate when you penny-ante mages
try that spell,” said the biggest of the eight, and with his hand on my neck it
was off to the magistrate.
The magistrate was a squat woman
with buck teeth. I considered plying her with my manly charms, but as I’d just
been beaten, dragged through the dung-covered streets, and hadn’t had a shave
or a manicure in a donkey’s age, I sensed it would be a waste of time.
Therefore I was more than a little shocked when she said, in a rather sultry
voice, “Leave him to me, boys.” The guardsmen filed out of the room without a
word, leaving me with the magistrate and an elderly bailiff dozing in the
corner.
Well, she was unappealing, but you
do what you must. I was about to say something charming when she said, “They
tell me you’re a mage of sorts, peon.”
“Yes, m’lady,” I said, oozing
virility. “Although at the moment a mage out
of sorts. But in matters of illusion, delusion, confusion, intrusion, and
occasional collusion, I’m considered rather ept. Bob the Mage, at your
service.”
“Very well, let’s make some magic.”
I swept her into my arms.
When I staggered back to my feet,
hand over my now-blackened eye, she said, “Don’t be a smartass. I mean show me
a trick.”
“Certainly, yes,” I said, thinking,
Certainly, no. I didn’t have any of
the props I needed for your really decent spells, and am incapable of doing
them anyway, being limited to mere prestidigitation. Back in my hometown of
Snyrgg (pronounced Snyrrrgg, long R)
I had managed to attend the Famous Mages School to learn the magic arts, but
ultimately discovered that I was not a natural magical talent and that lessons
cost much more than an orphan dishwasher and petty thief could afford. I never
forgot a thing I learned, but I had not learned much.
But I was not without some ability.
I made a great show of dark glaring and mumbling of words in phony tongues,
then cast a Hangnail Curse on her left foot. I swung about and hit her office
fern with a heat spell that withered off a few leaves. I used a Disenchantment
on the bailiff, who got disgusted and left. I even dropped the old Misspell on
a pile of documents, which screwed up the half the words. She was convinced.
“Welcome aboard, peon,” she said.
“You’ve just joined the Tegora Magical Corps.”
I stared aghast. In fact, I once
met a ghast, and he stared just like that. “I? In the army? You jest!” I cried.
“Why, one of the reasons I took up magic was to stay out of the Snyrgg
infantry! This is preposterous!”
“I agree completely, totally preposterous,
but we are forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel. You’ll be taken to your
cell for the remainder of the day. In the morning you will be taken to your
Wizard Instructor. Guards!”
As they were leading me out, the
magistrate said, “Bob?”
“Yes, m’lady?”
“Look on the bright side, kid. This
is probably better than having your hand cut off.”
One of the guards laughed. I too
had my doubts.
After a restful night on stones and
a tasty bit of morning gruel, I was out of the cell and once again dragged
along by the guards. By then I had bucked myself up. I imagined the so-called
Wizard Instructor as a befuddled old fool or a knuckleheaded kid—real wizards
usually had better ways to serve their king than pushing around scum like me.
So maybe this gig wouldn’t be so bad. Tegora wasn’t officially at war. It might
be pretty soft, really, and maybe I’d even learn some spells that didn’t suck.
All those thoughts dropped off like the leaves on the magistrate’s fern the
moment I saw Karkill, the beefiest, ugliest mage it had ever been my
displeasure to see.
His beard was black and mottled, as
though patches had been torn out; his hair sawed short; his nose long and
scraggly; his face scarred; his shoulders broad and dangerous. His teeth were
in good shape, though. He had most of them on a chain around his neck.
“Souvenirs,” he said, pointing to
them. His breath could have rusted the city gates.
“Very nice,” I said.
“Very nice, SIR,” he said.
“Oh, no need to call me—”
As I reeled under his blow, I
thought, All these concussions could hurt
a guy. “Very nice, sir,” I mumbled.
“Now listen, maggot,” he said,
producing a magic wand that looked like a riding crop. “I do not tolerate
disobedience, insubordination, wiseassery, uppitiness, slovenliness, sarcasm, snideness,
witty remarks, puns, or palindromes in my unit, is that clear?”
“Hold on, sir, that was
disobedience, insubordination, wiseassery… What came after that?”
I was thrown headfirst into a band
of mages, the rest of Karkill’s unit.
It was a ragtag bunch. There’s
little more pathetic than a mage who’s down on his luck. Most of them were sad
losers or hopeless dimwits, although a few looked like part-time cutthroats. I
was happy that my possessions were so few, little more than my body, and I was
nervous that it could wind up as part of the mess. Not serving it, being it.
Tegoran Army life was not all it’s
cracked up to be. In fact, the only thing that was cracking up was me. We weren’t
given any uniforms or wands or staffs or baths. We were thrown out of bed
before dawn, marched around in a full pack for a couple of hours, then fed
toasted slop. If we had not drilled well the day before we got untoasted slop.
After that it was an hour or so of Intensive Conjuring, Intermediate Cantrips,
Advanced Slight of Hand, and Asking for Volunteers. After a healthful lunch of
boiled slop, we marched around some more. Anyone who couldn’t keep up got
threatened with being turned into a newt. After a one-minute break (which we
could use any way we wanted!), we studied hand-to-hand combat, in which we
learned nothing except how far Karkill could throw us if he wanted to. That was
followed by survival courses. Then dinner: fried slop. Once we had Slop Au
Gratin, and I threw up. I was starting to hope they would turn me into food. At least there’d be something edible
around. After that it was time to march in big circles until the sun went down.
Then we polished our rags, did some spot-conjuring, and were sent to our cots.
All the while, breathing over us
like a seething demon, was Karkill, whom I came to believe was drinking the
blood of failed recruits to keep his breath foul. That breath was one of many
weapons he used to keep us in line.
When I had the energy to be
disappointed, I spent it on being disappointed that I was learning no new
magic. This was all stuff that the Famous Mages School used for its
introductory materials. After all that marching I would have paid a princely
sum for a Cure Toe Blister spell.
Don’t think we served for free, oh
no. We were paid one copper a week. I was informed that the informal slogan of
the Tegoran Army was: It’s not just a job, it’s a reason to wish you were dead.
After approximately eight hundred
years of this, although the calendar said two months, Karkill gathered our
tattered remains on the parade grounds one evening and told us, “I’ll need
three volunteers for a secret mission. You, you, and you.” I was the second you.
“What for, O Mighty One?” asked the
first you, a hunchbacked suckup named
Farp.
“If I told you it wouldn’t be
secret,” said Karkill, and smote Farp on his hump. “Sucker. You three will
report to my office right after morning slop. You’d better still be chewing.”
Our mouths running with toasted
slop, I, Farp, and a skinny pimpled kid named Lefro stood at attention before
Karkill’s desk. He was finishing his own breakfast of entrails and rivets,
washed down by a sticky red liquid.
“You three will accompany a party
of warriors,” said Karkill. “They’ll know what to do. The commanding officer is
Chokolost the Unpleasant. I can’t reveal the nature of the mission except to
say you’re probably going to get real sentimental about this place. Now, git;
you’re due at the armory in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes found us at the armory
and feeling sentimental already. Chokolost the Unpleasant could have been
Karkill’s meaner, bigger, smellier brother. He also seemed to resent having
three scrub mages on his hands. He made it clear that our presence was demanded
by the brass. For all Karkill’s faults, at least he was a mage, one of us.
Chokolost was not. He stared at us,
as did the beefy foot soldiers with him. “You’re the wizards I’m stuck with,”
he sneered.
Lefro peed in his robes.
“Thought as much. Well, listen,
spellboys. You’re not getting any of that namby-pamby la-di-da treatment with
me that you’ve gotten so far. When you’re with my unit you live, work, and
breathe with my unit. You take orders from me quicker than my own recruits do,
and I brainwashed them myself. You walk where we walk, eat what we eat, and
basically act like rough, tough he-men like us, or we feed you to the wolves.
Right?”
“Mumble.”
“RIGHT?”
“RIGHT, SIR!”
“Go inside and suit up. Take what
you need. And sign for it.”
I just got the bare necessities—heavy
cloak, rations, boots, dagger, spell supplies, and a huge bottle of rum. Farp
took the same but got whiskey. Lefro got fresh robes and a suit of plate armor.
“Are you nuts?” I asked as he
struggled into it. It was built for a man with actual muscles, and fit poorly. “You’re
as feeble at magic as I am. Iron will ruin your spellcasting. You wouldn’t be
able to cast an Augment Lice in that.”
“Maybe not,” said Lefro, “but I’m
coming back alive.”
We all took a drink of Farp’s booze
and headed out. The day was fair but quickly turned to smog. We went on foot,
as did the soldiers, but Chokolost rode a mule. We did not stop for lunch, as the
CO did not have a problem eating while riding. We wended our way toward the
Unimpressive Mountains, crossed the Stupified River, and skirted the Unromantic
Forest. Farp and I were holding up, but Lefro was getting tired walking in that
armor. We mages still had no idea what our mission was, and any queries were
met by hoots of laughter.
After dark we made camp in a lovely
bog. We were serenaded by the howling of wolves, and dropped off to sleep in
the company of friendly mosquitos. I slept on a rock, which was soft and cozy
after all that marching. Still, I kind of missed the ol’ gang at Karkill’s, and
my nice wooden cot.
By the next afternoon we had
reached that famous attraction, Weeping Rock, so called because there was a
natural basin at its top that collected rain and dripped it out. It was boring.
The foot soldiers punched the guy at the souvenir stand and took some magnets
and stickers. I got a little model of the rock that burped when you squeezed
it. We continued on.
Another day of travel put us smack
up against an Unimpressive Mountain. We proceeded up some goat trails until the
goats chased us off. Chagrined, we took to the sheer slopes. It was hard, slow
progress, alleviated only once by the humorous sight of Lefro losing his grip
and crashing in stages to the bottom. Chokolost laughed so hard he almost fell
off his mule, and let me tell you, that mule was an excellent rock climber. We
were further amused by Lefro’s cries of “Hey, wait up!” as he struggled back up
the mountain.
About a third of the way up,
Chokolost called a halt. We were on a broad ledge with a magnificent view of
the Tegoran valley, the broad blue sky, the winding Spyro River below. We all
panted with joy. Even Lefro, bloodied and bruised, looked happy. It had been a
hard journey, but this spot was sweet.
“Here’s where it becomes difficult,
men,” said Chokolost. “What do you see here?”
The soldiers scratched their heads
and rubbed their beards and made faces. Farp said, “A sheer wall.”
“Right, mage,” said Chokolost. The
soldiers sighed, relieved that this hadn’t been a pop quiz. “Or so it appears.
There is a door here, hidden to the natural senses. Mages, concentrate your
puny powers on this task. Find and open this door, and then the real men can
take over.”
I would have liked it if they’d let
real men take on this whole stupid quest. The problem was that any spell strong
enough to conceal a door exposed to the elements would be too powerful for the
three of us to break without special equipment, like many barrels of gunpowder.
But our duty was plain, as was the two-hundred-foot drop beside us to the
river, and so we set to. Soon we were filling the air with gouts of incense and
the words of dead languages, making passes through the air with arcane herbs,
and basically screwing around.
After ten minutes of this stalling,
Chokolost got irritated. “Well?” he bellowed.
“Oh, Mighty One,” said Lefro, “remember,
such tasks take time.”
Chokolost threw him off the cliff.
“Take less time,” he said to me and
Farp.
Lefro had not bounced off the side
of the mountain and been crushed, but he hit the river, where he was probably
crushed, and if not, completely submerged in an iron death trap. I swallowed hard
and got back to the chanting.
Farp and I kept it up for a few
more minutes at a faster clip, but there really wasn’t anything we could do. I
started sweating in places I didn’t know could produce sweat. Farp’s voice
started to snap like a pubescent boy’s. About two hundred feet below, a wolf
chuckled.
Struck by desperation, Farp
suddenly turned to Chokolost and cried, “Mighty One! This is madness! The power
that concealed this door is too strong, and will destroy us all! No mortal can
survive!”
Chokolost threw him off the cliff.
“He sure was mortal,” said
Chokolost. “I hope you’ll be more optimistic.”
“Wait! I think I see the problem!”
I said, staring intently at the wall as if I could peer right through it. All I
saw was the same rock everyone else saw. “We were going about it all wrong. Let
me try some of my other items here…”
“What are you doing, mage?” said
one soldier, laughing. He didn’t want to go inside a secret cave of unknown dangers,
I gathered. Much more fun to play Wizard Toss and go home.
“I’m studying dimensions,” I lied,
trying to keep the shake out of my voice. Actually I was looking for handholds
on the rock wall. I really had gotten an inspiration, and that was this: that a
lightly encumbered wizard might be able to scramble out of reach of heavily
armed men before they could string their bows. All I needed was a good smoke
screen—my flashy flash spell didn’t work outdoors, even if I did remember to
close my eyes. I set to making the proper mess.
“I’m warning you…” said Chokolost.
“Ready?” I said, about to add the
last touch (powdered lark turd). “One…”
“This better work…”
“Two…”
“Or you’re going to need a flying
potion.”
“Three!” I added the powder.
Nothing happened.
After a pause, the snickering
soldier said, “Well?”
I blushed furiously and said, “Hey,
uh, well, how about that. It’s like this…”
Two things happened at once. I had
a mental vision of my old jovial teacher, Simon the Unsteady, saying, “It goes
off in fourteen seconds, dimwit!” And the potion burst into an enormous cloud
of smoke.
I plunged forward, blind as
everyone else, hoping I’d remember where I’d seen some handholds on the rocks.
Someone in armor rattled against me, and I heard a scream as if it were five
rooms away. I staggered forward.
Suddenly I was falling… falling…
***
[Oh, no! Is Bob dead before his story could even get going? Come back next Friday to see if Chapter 2 consists of just "Bob died, the end"!!!!]
No comments:
Post a Comment