Bob the Mage, ch. 10.

[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:

chapter 9, chapter 8, chapter 7, chapter 6, chapter 5, chapter 4, chapter 3, chapter 2, chapter 1

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

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!]