[Author's note: Fiction Friday! once again, with another part in the saga of our hero. As noted before, I wrote Bob the Mage quite a while ago -- my one and only completed fantasy-world book -- and am rewriting it and posting it here. As chapter nine ended Bob, the poor excuse for a wizard, was in most a most dire predicament, having washed up (not accidentally) on Mormor's Big Evil Island. The terrible villain is hosting Bob's love, Princess Suzy, but is not a nice guy. After dinner he imprisoned Bob in his hellish dungeon, subjected Bob to treatment with a magical shrinking powder, and explained his plan to make Suzy think Bob had died. Well, things have to get better, because they really can't get worse, right?
Previous chapters can be found at these links:
And remember, if you're enjoying the book, tell someone! Post a link! Put up a sign! If you're hating the book, write me a letter! (frederick_key at yahoo) I'll try to talk you out of it!]
Bob the Mage
by Frederick Key
Bob the Mage
by Frederick Key
Chapter 10
When I regained consciousness, my first thought was, Gee, what a big cell this is.
My second thought was, I am so screwed.
I guess I’d shrunk from my usual
five-eleven to something like four-seven. My boots were enormous on me, and I
looked like a kid wearing his dad’s clothes. I was in pain all over, as if I’d
spent the previous twenty-two hours in intensive training followed by two hours
of being intensively kicked. Bob, the incredible shrinking mage.
Well, it could be worse. I’ve
always been a supporter of the little guy. What really scared me was what would
happen when I got to that tiny size Mormor had promised. What would he do to
me? And then I realized how much time had passed, and that Suzy must have found
the dead copy of me by now, and then I felt despair.
At some point later a three-legged
demon came by with some strange-looking bread and bluish water. I didn’t want
to eat, lest I ingest more of Mormor’s poisons, but the hunger by then was too
strong. I discovered as I wolfed down the bread that I’d never commit suicide
by hunger strike. The food was unpleasant, as different as could be from my
last meal, but what really made it awful was the demon. The runt stood there
watching me with his multiple eyes, licking his shoulders with his big hairy
tongue. I can hardly describe his stink except to say it made the bilge of the Seaworthy smell like a host of golden
daffodils.
Disgust and despair were eventually
replaced by boredom, which I tried to relieve by seeking an escape. I could
only guess how much time was passing by how long it took for me to get hungry
again. The dull, unchanging light of the place came from no window or torch; just
from the air itself, it seemed. I was in one cell of many, as Mormor had said;
it was a warehouse of lost souls.
Many of the souls were screaming at
least part of the time. I could probably hear a hundred or more, but I could
only see five from the bars of my cell. There were the two Mormor had
described—the one trapped in his own body and the one breeding horrible creatures
that fed on her. Farther along was a man being kept alive by some sort of
talisman over him, who was being rolled flat by a wheel of stone. A woman in
the next cell was infected with some disease that caused her to attack herself,
ripping away at her own flesh from time to time, teeth, nails, and sinew
breaking and shredding. Another man kept alive magically was boiling in a vat
and slowly melting; he made no sound, for his mind had clearly snapped. People
always say you can’t imagine how bad it
was—but I really hope you can’t. If Mormor was doing this in the name of
knowledge, he was making ignorance look good.
“Hey,” came a weak voice from one
of the cells. It was the woman acting as the human incubator. Her voice had
probably been pretty, once.
“Hello,” I squeaked. It seemed my
voice was shrinking along with me.
She said, “What’re you in for?”
“Trespassing or something.”
“Mm. I tried to burn a horrible
book on demonology. Arrrgh!”
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re getting ready to burst out
again.”
I left it at that.
“Do me a favor?” she asked.
“Anything I can.”
“You don’t seem as bad off as most
of us yet. If you manage to escape, before you go, kill me.”
Escape. Yeah, right. By the time I
was small enough to slip through the bars I’d be in the gerbil cage. And even
if I wasn’t, what can you do when you’re five inches tall? I didn’t want to say
it to her, but my chances of escape were as good as hers.
However, I sighed and said, “Of
course.”
As the day progressed, my pain
became almost unbearable. I was down to about half my height and unable to
move. I must have dozed now and then, for I was awakened by weird sounds a
couple of times, and once when the demon returned with a meal.
Just when I had sunk to the
blackest spot of my life, a spot that has a lot of competition for the title,
some more food was brought to me by a different demon, one larger and uglier
than the first, but without the rotting flesh bouquet. It slipped bread and
water to me through the bars, then stared balefully at me with its many eyes.
“If you’re waiting for a tip,” I
said, “forget it.”
Then the demon tossed something to
me I was not expecting—a root vegetable that I realized was mandrake. It looked
enormous.
“Eat as much of it as you can,
right away,” said the demon in Suzy’s voice.
“That’s it,” I said. “I’ve finally lost
my mind.”
“For the first time? You’re
sticking with that story?”
“Suzy!” I said. “Is that you for
real? What has be done to you?”
“Nothing. It’s all done with
mirrors.” In an instant the demon vanished and in its place was the world’s
greatest princess, looking pretty huge to me now. “It’s an illusion mirror,
see? Small enough to fit in my palm, but when I press the widget it casts the
illusion of a demon. It even fooled the creepy demon on watch; that’s how I got
in. But look at tiny little you! Better eat that mandrake; from what I read in
the library it will counteract most potions and powders.”
I pulled myself to the root and
started gnawing on it. It was awfully tough and tasted horrible, but I was
determined. Between bites I asked, “How’d you get this stuff?”
“Zippy’s got so many magic items he
just leaves them all over the place. He’s a slob, really, and everyone who
works for him winds up dead or down here, so he relies on imps and demons, and
they’re even bigger slobs.” She sighed. “I think he thinks I’ve been totally
taken in by him, so he doesn’t suspect me of anything.”
“Didn’t he make you think I was
dead?”
“That phony suicide? So he told you
about that? It had me going at first, but a few things gave it away. The dead
body looked healthier than you do.”
“Hmmph.”
“And the note. What garbage. ‘My
dear Suzette, next to handsome and mighty Lord Mormor I see how unworthy I am
of you, so I must perish. Farewell.’ Yeah, like that sounded like you.”
“I’d probably just leave a note
saying ‘I’m outta here.’”
“And while I can’t say I know you
well, I know you’re not a killer, not even of yourself. Lucky for us both, Zippy
thinks I’m an idiot. While he was off doing something evil I was toying with
all his magic crap. I was looking into a crystal, wondering where you really
were, when it showed me you, shrinking away in this horrible dungeon. And here
I am.”
“You’re ten times more amazing than
I thought you were.”
“You’re sweet! Now listen, shorty,
I can’t stay long.”
“Ha-ha.”
“I’ve arranged for some help for
you, and I’ve got some pilfered items, too.”
“Thievery? I’m rubbing off on you.”
“There’s a key for the cell, and a
mystic bomb. You know how to use it? Just turn the dial and run like crazy,
then boom. Do not be anywhere nearby.
Use it as a last resort. My uncle has a couple of these and they’re doozies. Good
luck, my darling.”
“Good luck? Come on, let’s both get
out of here.”
“No,” she said, her voice catching,
and I nearly wept. “Not now. I can’t. You can only escape if I stay behind to
assist you with those magic toys of his.”
“You’ll leave yourself in the grip
of that monster?” I said, sitting up. I was already in less pain, and I drew
myself up to my dramatic height of two-foot-eight. “Look around you! You could
be on this side of the bars when he finds out!”
“Maybe. But I think he’s still
working on bringing me over to the dark side. A creep like that can make it
sound tempting. But I’ll always remember that his way leads to places like
this. I’ll be safe as long as I resist. Now please, don’t argue anymore. I have
to go.”
“I’ll be back for you, Suzy.
Somehow I’ll save you.”
She reached between the bars,
mussed the hair on my little head, and said, “I hope so. Because I’ll be saving
my kisses for you.” And she dashed off, re-demonizing as she ran.
I began to grow back to normal, but
it was going to take some time. I was worried that demon #1 would return and
re-poison me, but if he did I still had some of the root. I just hoped he
wouldn’t snitch (“Hey! The gerbil’s gettin’ big again, boss!”). I’d make him
eat the bomb if he did.
But before I saw the demon again, I
saw the help Suzy had promised. Or rather, first I heard it.
“Shh!”
“Mutter mutter.”
“Psst psst psst sh!”
“Mumble mumble.”
“Be quiet! Gads, you are the
noisiest sneak thief since the famed Dog Burglar, who struck fifty-eight years
ago in the town of Waloosh!”
I listened patiently to a lecture
on criminology until they found me at last.
“Gads!” cried Astercam on seeing
me. “Did someone wash you at the wrong temperature?”
“Hilarious,” I said. “And good to
see you alive, too.”
Bourbon smiled and farted.
“This is a temporary condition,”
said I, “being corrected by a mandrake antidote.”
“Ah! Mandrake! Not the panacea some
suppose, but—”
“Here’s the key to the cell. Let me
out.”
Bourbon frowned and grumbled.
“Now what?”
“He wanted to bend the bars with
his bare hands to free you,” said Astercam.
“Well, this is faster. But while
I’m marveling at how good you look alive rather than dead, how are you alive? And here?”
Fumbling with the key, Astercam
said, “Bourbon turned out to be a powerful swimmer. He kept me alive in the
storm, then managed to get us to another island. When I saw that this was that island I nearly died of
fright, but I pulled myself together, as after all the trouble he’d gone to I
thought it would be ungrateful of me. When we weren’t attacked and killed
immediately it was clear that the proprietor had not spotted us. Moreover we
were close to the pier he uses for mainland travel, and there were boats. But before
we could try to steal one, a message appeared in the air before us, in fancy
handwriting. ‘Rescue Bob,’ it said, and a frilly arrow appeared pointing to a
sewer tunnel. It was blocked by a grate, which Bourbon easily removed, and we
came out through a drainage pit into this hellhole. There, you’re free, my
diminutive friend. Someone in the castle obviously likes you.”
“I’ll tell you all once we’re out.”
“Let us hurry; this place chills my
old bones.”
“It’s doing nothing for my young
ones.”
“Gads,” said the old scholar,
wincing at the scenes of horror around him, “how might my research have
inadvertently contributed to this madness?”
We walked down the corridor the way
they’d come, and I confess I kept my eyes forward, afraid of seeing worse than
I had already seen. It led to the drainage hole, which Bourbon could just barely
squeeze through. We had to hand his ax down to him. Astercam went next. I
turned the dial on the mystic bomb as far as it would go, then rolled it back
the way we’d come, toward my incubator friend. I had no idea how strong it was,
but I hoped it would do the job.
The tunnel was dark, smelled like
feces and blood, but it was wide. There were side tunnels leading off it, but
they were all smaller than this one, so it seemed we would be safe following the
main branch of filth. I assumed, or at least told myself, that Astercam remembered
the way they’d come. I trudged along holding up the bottom of my oversized
robes. The rats terrified me more than they normally would in my small state.
All I could think of was Suzy, how much she’d risked for me, and what I could
do to help her.
But after a while we were still in
the stupid tunnel, and another thought crept in. “Say, does this tunnel only
feature regular rats?”
“As far as we’ve seen, Bob. Why?”
“Because I thought I heard
something, and I think we’d better start running.”
And not a moment too soon. Just as
a dot of moonlight appeared before us, we heard a godawful squeal, like five
thousand fingernails on five thousand blackboards.
“What was that?” said Astercam.
I could not answer as I was flung
to the ground by Bourbon, as he wheeled about with his giant ax. I could smell
the giant rat before it actually attacked us. I couldn’t see it well in the
tunnel’s gloom, but it was maybe six feet at the shoulder, its eyes glowing
red. The darkness would give it an advantage. Bourbon swung at it mightily and
it reared back, hissing.
I had had my magic stuff taken from
me, but there were a few spells I could still do, like a heat spell. I cast it
at the rat, but twaddled wrong, and it came out as the nice warming version of
the spell. Damn it. I’d just improved its grooming.
“There’s more behind it!” screamed
Astercam.
Bourbon was dealing massive blows,
but the rat was not giving up, and sure enough there were a couple more of the
monsters coming up the tunnel. I was out of anything useful, and Astercam was
unarmed but for his five or six teeth.
“RUN!” I screamed, because I’d just
remembered the bomb.
Bourbon was not a runner by nature,
but he took the hint. The three of us barreled forth. There was a huge VA VOOM and a burst of flame was seen
down the tunnel. I smelled barbecued rat. No doubt there was plenty of sewer
gas to keep the fireball rolling. The rats, giant and normal, shrieked, and we
were suddenly in danger of being run over by them. The fireball was gaining,
and now it was sucking in oxygen, threatening to pull us all back into the
flame. It was tugging at my robes and I was losing my forward motion when…
…when the floor dropped out from
under me and we all fell fifteen feet down a slimy slope onto the black sands
of Big Evil Beach. Over our heads shot a blast of flame, and we three humans
managed to roll out of the way of the burning giant rat corpses being coughed
out of the sewer pipe like charcoal phlegm.
Astercam choked out some words of
non-reassurance: “So much (cough) for stealth! We’ve (hack, hack) got to get
out of here!” He chugged along the beach and pointed over a hillock to a
catamaran attached to a pier, one of several black boats that Mormor kept
moored there. Part of the Big Evil Navy, I guess. At the end of the pier was a smallish
watchdemon, who was standing there drooling, looking back in shock at the smoke
flowing from the sewer pipe. He didn’t even notice us until Bourbon sank his ax
into his squishy demon head. I guess he noticed that.
We chugged along the pier and piled
into the catamaran, and we variously cast off and shoved and swam and pushed
the boat away. Fortune was with us, for a breeze was blowing, and in the
darkness we got the sails up and were making good speed immediately.
I looked back. Smoke curled up from
the island, her awful castle perched on top, blacker than the night sky. Its
skull facade was pointed the other way, but I knew we could be seen by at least
one of its inhabitants.
We didn’t say it, but we were all
waiting for an enormous storm to hit. The next hour or so was exceptionally
tense and quiet. But it looked like the bomb—whose strength I had seriously
underestimated—had provided an adequate distraction to the evil mage, for if
he’d had any idea I had left the island or that my companions had ever been on
it, we would surely have been toast.
“You’re filling out your clothes
well,” said Astercam. “Got any mandrake left?”
“Why? Are you cursed?”
“No, hungry.”
Bourbon grunted something.
“I think he said we’re safe,” said
Astercam. “So now, tell me, Bob, what was that explosion?”
I laid down on the tiny deck area.
“Another first,” I said. “I kept a promise.”
⛵
[Will Bob and his companions make it someplace safe? Can Suzy be rescued from Mormor's evil clutches? Will PETA protest the horrible treatment of giant rats? Find out the answers to some of these questions and many more next Friday in Chapter 11 of Bob the Mage!]
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