Bob the Mage, ch. 4.

[Author's note: Fiction Friday! again, with the fourth chapter of our novel, Bob the Mage, which I wrote some years ago and am reviving now for your reading... perhaps pleasure is too strong a word. When last we saw our hero (in chapter 3, here, and before that in chapter 2, here, then 1, back in April) he was stuck alone in the scrubland wilderness with no food, the Gallstone of the Gods having been stolen from him along with his rations by fellow loser mage Lefro. Bob has no idea how to get to civilization before he starves to death...]

Bob the Mage

By Frederick Key

Chapter 4

It’s never a good day when you’re considering willful death by monster. Then I thought of an old exercise my old master, Simon the Unsteady, used to make me do.

Bob, lad, he’d say, magic is a force of nature, like lightning and magnetism and gravity. It emanates from the spirit of the world itself. All creatures have the potential to use it, but the more intelligent the creature, the more he can shape it to his will. This is why you see very few wombat magicians. Now, most people don’t have the aptitude to access this potential, so they never even get as far as you. Follow me?

No, I’d say.

So, since it emanates from the world, you can concentrate on it and tune in with it. Focus, Bob. Feel it turning beneath you, feel the molten rock shifting, feel the water sloshing about, feel the life in distant cities. It’s a nifty trick and impresses the babes. Now you try it. Then he’d cuff my ear and collapse into a stupor often as not.

I’d tried the tuning in bit many times, frequently when I was studying under Simon, occasionally since if I was bored and had nothing going on, but all I ever felt was the floor under my butt. I always figured that my failure was one reason I never amounted to much in the mage game. Oh, sure, card tricks, juggling, and larceny, but they weren’t real magic and they couldn’t help me in this current predicament. I decided to try the tuning in thing again.

Eyes closed, mind blank. Quiet, peaceful. Concentrate. Calm, cool, mind… drifting…

I’m gonna die out here, I’m just gonna die, I’m gonna starve to death, just suffering the whole time

Stop that! Mind BLANK! DRIFTing, peaceful, calm… calm…

and some jackal will come along and eat me while I’m still alive and I’ll linger under the blazing sun and

CALM, COOL, peaceful, an oasis of serenity, soul filled with light, mind bla—

gonna die gonna die gonna die die die

Just calm down, now, mind, coooool down those racing thoughts, STOP WITH THE THOUGHTS ALREADY, just cool calmness, calm coolness, cool calmosity, calm coolification…

die die die die die die die

If you don’t knock it off, I will die, you stupid mind; now stop thinking and let me reach for the earth, the winds, the rains, the living things

the dying things, the dead things, die die die

tuning in now, getting myself so calm I’m almost asleep

DIE

om

DIE

ommm

DIE

ommmY GOD I’m GONNA DIE

(city)

Wait, what was that?

Nothing, you were busy dying

(city)

I had done it! I felt a slight tingle of thousands of human beings congregated in a living, active city, and I knew where it lay to the north as certainly as if I had been grabbed by the chin and pointed toward it. I knew it was not that far, and I wouldn’t have to climb a bunch of mountains to get there, either. I jumped up, did a little jig, told my subconscious to pound sand, and headed in the direction of the city.

It was tough going, especially in those army boots, which still were not broken in. Thinking about that made me realize that I was officially deserting the Tegoran army, but it didn’t worry me much. I thought I’d paid plenty for my crimes, whatever they thought, and they’d probably figure I was dead unless Lefro admitted he’d seen me alive. If Lefro survived the trip back to Tegora to claim the reward, he’d probably concoct some story about being the last survivor of the party, nobly fighting through to bring Maximo the Gallstone. That’s what I would have done.

A new city awaited me, and that put lightness in my heart. Someplace with food and drink, bored citizens in need of magical entertainment in the form of light prestidigitation and tricks nefarious, with big fat purses, who didn’t know my reputation. Rapture!

But first it was a three-day walk over the wastes, three hungry days that I managed to survive with some tips I learned in Basic and with sneakiness. My travels with the Tegorans taught me a few plants that could be eaten without death, and I caught a couple of prairie dogs for lunch with a Zap Vermin spell (usually used for rat-catching). The weather was dry, but I encountered enough watering holes to keep going. Fortunately I encountered no monsters, and nothing tried to devour me.

I arrived at the gates of Purgor just as the sun set. Two towers, each with one guard, bounded the gates.

“Who goes there?” yelled one of the guards. They were way up high.

“Bob!” I shouted.

“Bob of what?”

“Bob of necessity but not of nature.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What do you want in Purgor?”

“I wish to put my hand to noble work, helping society in any way I can.”

“Got any money?”

“A few coppers… Oh, and gold! Yeah, pile of gold. Almost forgot.”

“How much?”

“Uh…”

“Can we have some?”

“Um… I may have exaggerated—”

“Just let him in, Jerry, before he bores us to death. He looks harmless.”

“Useless, you mean, Murk.”

“Oh, he’d be the only one in town, huh?”

Purgor was a lush seaside town, by which I mean it had wild pigs to eat the garbage. It had colorful manses high up on a hill in the town’s center, whitewashed huts in rings farther down, happy and fat citizens, and lively exchanges of gold and silver. The only seedy part of town I could see was the waterfront. I headed there immediately.

I quickly found lodgings with a Mr. Homer S. Uncouth, proprietor of the Pig & Snorkel. A kindly old codger was he, whose cherubic smile and sweet disposition did little to dispel his reputation for stabbing lodgers who were late with rent as they slept. His wife was a piece of work, too.

“I run a respectable inn, young man,” he said, cleaning his nails with a long dagger. “No loud music, no late liaisons, no busting the furniture, no fighting, no wailing and gnashing of teeth. Friday is rent day, first week up front, two meals a day served by my lovely bride, no bleeding in the dining room. Do not be late with the rent. Am I understood?”

I had just enough coppers from my army pay to get the week paid with one whole copper left over. That would be enough to get me a stale bun. I hoped his wife was a good cook, but I had my doubts. Her permanent resting sneer could curdle butter.

After a brisk walk through the slum to soak up the local color, I settled down to dinner. The beefy Mrs. Uncouth served up some mouthwatering gruel, with four crackers to a man, some watery beer, and a small blob of meat, the origin of which was of some spirited discussion among the lodgers. After months of army food and three days of prairie dog it was—well, it was still pretty bad, but it didn’t kill me.

My fellow lodgers, however, looked like they might. Two elderly peg-legged and hook-handed sailors sat alongside me; across the table were four assorted cutthroats; and at the head of the table was a ratty dwarf.

“Hey,” I said by way of conversation, “I haven’t seen many dwarves in these parts.”

“With food like this, it’s no wonder,” he said.

He seemed okay, but the cutthroats rubbed me the wrong way. They seemed like the kind who would sneak into one’s room and pilfer one’s possessions, and use up all one’s aftershave. Worse, they seemed like the kind whose own possessions weren’t worth pilfering, and whose taste in aftershave was lousy. I was on my guard.

Despite my caution, I was able to rest up for a couple of days at the inn, recovering from my adventures and not getting fat on Mrs. Uncouth’s comestibles. Then I decided it was time to make some cash for next week’s expenses.

I proceeded to the marketplace where I set to the usual, juggling, telling jokes, making things disappear, and I did well. My hopes for the city were met. I got coins from an appreciate audience, and if there were any wary ones who expected I was a distraction while an accomplice picked their pockets, they soon realized they were wrong. I could handle that all on my own, and no one caught me at it, either. Soon I had enough to get a decent pair of boots and replenish my magic supplies. You’d be amazed how much Eye of Newt can run in northern cities. Yes, things seemed to be looking up for Young Bob, which should have been a sign that they were about to fall apart. They usually do.

Sure enough, halfway through the next week, I was doing the dagger shtick for the last crowd of the day when I found myself in a headlock. The daggers fell around me, and I nearly said good-bye to a few toes.

“Is your name Bob?” asked the ruffian who had grabbed me.

“Gik.”

“Come on. No funny stuff, now.”

Funny stuff is hard to do when you’re being dragged along in a headlock by someone twice your size who doesn’t much care about your ability to breathe. It was a Purgor guardsman, but that was not apparent initially. They dress them cheap; you can usually only tell by the red feather in the helm, which I couldn’t see from my current position. He dragged like a cop, though, and I figured I’d gotten away with one shenanigan too many and was about to get horsewhipped, or wind up drafted into the Purgor army. Once again my life’s calling had ended in trouble. Or so I thought.

The Purgor guardsman base is located on the waterfront, which showed efficient planning all around. It’s a short, squat building that nevertheless has plenty of cell space to hold scoundrels until they can be sent somewhere even worse. I was brought to a room with a small, square window and stale, hot air, and thrown on the floor.

“Is this the man?” growled my captor.

I looked up to see my accuser, and my heart stopped. Before me were two Tegoran soldiers who held a beaten and chained Lefro. Normally I’d have been thrilled to see his cuts and bruises, but not now.

“That’s the one!” Lefro squealed. “He abandoned the party to its fate, deserted the army, tried to steal the Gallstone from me, caused the plagues, started the wars, brought the rats, ate the last piece of cake, butchered my uncle Sneeve, and—”

“Lefro, you lying sack of manure!” I would have strangled him if the Purgor guardsman didn’t have a heel on my spine. “He’s the one who stole the Gallstone, after I rescued it from the Labyrinth of Misery! I, the last surviving member of the expedition! I’ll bet he never even had an Uncle Sneeve! Who names their kid Sneeve?”

“It’s a family name!”

“LIAR!”

“Enough!” shouted the guardsman, punctuating his remark by moving his heel to my head. “They’re obviously guilty as sin. I leave them to you guys.”

“Nice extradition statute,” I said, “but I’m innocent!”

All right, not innocent, if you want to quibble, but I’d be damned if I let Lefro put my head in the noose. Although I’d lost my daggers I still had my pouch. I faked a hacking cough and slipped my hand into the pouch where the fresh Eye of Newt awaited. Tossing it in the air I made the magic incantation: “Zippidy doo dah, zippidy ay! Turn these suckers into clay!” Along with the appropriate gestures, of course.

Had it worked, all four of them would have been paralyzed for a several minutes. As it happened, they were only slowed down a bit, and I had a feeling it would be a short bit. I got to my feet and headed for the door.

“Sssstaaahhhpppp thhhaaaaatt maaaaaan!” shouted one of the soldiers, and the Purgor guard grabbed at me, but I squirted away easily and slammed the door behind me. Then I walked nonchalantly toward the exit, smiling and whistling. Not easy, smiling and whistling at the same time. When I hit the street I heard a regular-speed shout, and I ran like merry hell.

It was twilight now, and although I figured I could hide better at night, the local authorities knew the town better than I ever would, and after my little trick they wouldn’t stop until I swung. I just kept running and hoping for a brilliant idea.

“Psst!” I heard from an alley.

I stopped. I can be stupid like that when I’m panicking. “Yeah?”

“Need a place to hide?”

“Umm—yeah.”

“This way.”

I couldn’t see my new best friend well, for he was just a small shadow in the darkness of the alley, but I followed that shadow all the same. We went down a dank and crumbling staircase, hearing the drip of water and the scuttle of rats, and then through a narrow tunnel that stank of dead fish and mold. We got to an iron door. He removed the bar that sealed it and pulled it open.

Behind it was a pier, on a narrow ledge that would be under water at high tide. As I stepped onto the slippery rock, I was grabbed from behind, a blade poking my neck, “Be quiet!” hissed in my ear. I was getting used to this kind of behavior, and while I should have been terrified, I was just hoping it wasn’t the guardsmen or the Tegorans.

I would have cause to rethink that hope shortly.

A boat, rowed by a powerful, bearded sailor came alongside the ledge. In the boat sat a fat, ugly man with an eye patch and a tricorne hat. The dwarf from the inn, for it was he who led me here, stepped from behind me and said, “Got one for ya, Cap’n.”

“Scrawny,” said the fat man. “You won’t get yer usual price.”

“Be fair, now, Cap’n! This man uses magicks and such.”

“If he’s so mighty, what’s he doing in your clutches?”

The dickered for a bit, but the dwarf finally got a silver piece for me. In Tegora, that would have bought him half a hog. I was worth half a hog.

While I was feeling depressed, the thugs behind me slipped a canvas sack over me, and before I could tell them how badly I got seasick, the sack was tied and I was thrown like so many potatoes onto the boat. The sack smelled like potatoes, tell you the truth. I heard the sound and felt the motion of rowing, and soon we reached a ship that lay at anchor in the harbor. I was freed so I could climb the rope ladder. The swords and arrows trained on my face and my rear end convinced me not to try swimming for it.

We reassembled on the deck.
“Welcome to me ship!” said the captain. “And don’t vomit so loud while I’m talkin’ to yeh. You’re a sickly one, ain’tcha, matey? Well, you’ll get some sea legs soon enough, or be fed to the fishes! Right, me hearties?”

I turned from the rail for a moment and saw the nastiest looking bunch of sea dogs imaginable, whittling their peglegs and picking their ears with sabers. They looked at me like I was a perfect medium-rare steak.

I got homesick for the Tegoran army once again.

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[Bob's in the soup once again -- pressed into service on a pirate ship! Out of the frying pan and into Davy Jones' Locker! Can he survive? Can he escape? Can he swim? Can he walk the plank? Find out next week in chapter 5!]