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Bob the Mage
by Frederick Key
Chapter 9
Mormor sat me across the table from Suzy, so far apart that
our knees couldn’t touch. I know, I tried. Anyway, just seeing her alive was
more wonderful than anything, even the food, with which I duly stuffed myself.
I had about one of everything, each bite better than the last, and my mug of
ale seemed to refill itself magically, and in twenty minutes I was in a stupor.
It was great.
It was then that I realized no one
had spoken in twenty minutes. My fellow diners had been watching me, Suzy with
pity, Mormor with humor. I decided to say something witty, but a belch forced
its way out first. I shook my head, took a breath, and said, “Forgive me, I’ve
been starving. Suzy, I thought you were dead.”
“And I you, Bob. When that freak
storm hit I thought we were both done for, but somehow the waves carried me to
this island, and dropped me somewhat battered on the beach. Zippy has been
looking after me since. And you?”
“I washed up on another island, not
too far from here. Wouldn’t you know it, just as I was sailing away on a raft,
another freak storm hit. Is that amazing or what?” I might have just asked
Zippy straight up about the storms, but it’s not nice to accuse someone of
treachery and meteorological murder when your stomach is full of his food.
Anyway, he’d been so pleasant I was finding it hard to believe he really was
into all the skulls and stuff. After all, folks with skull tattoos all over
them are nicer than a lot of prim pious people, or at least so the folks with
the skull tattoos keep saying. Mormor probably just bought the castle as a
fixer-upper, I was thinking, and hadn’t gotten around to de-skulling.
“I’m so happy you didn’t die,” said
Suzy.
“Me too, just so I could see you
again.”
Sensing approaching mushiness (I
assume), Mormor said, “Come, Bob, let us retire for a brandy and talk shop a
bit. I would like your thoughts on a professional matter, which I’m sure would
bore the fair lady.”
“Yes, let’s,” I said. I was so
stupefied by the turn of events—and ten pounds of food and ale—since reaching
Big Evil Island that I was to this point unable to focus on what Mormor’s game
could be. Maybe he would show his hand now, man-to-man. I was feeling congenial
and starting to think Astercam had him all wrong, maybe even that horrible
flash storms were just natural around here. Plus, I hadn’t had brandy in a
purple thurgwott’s age. “Please forgive me, Suzy, because I really don’t want
to be anywhere you aren’t.”
“Yes, Bob,” she said. “Zippy has told
me about the demands on a spellcaster’s time, and I am sure you have much to
discuss. Besides, I am feeling awfully sleepy.”
“Good night, fair one,” said Mormor
as she left us.
I said, “I thank you for the meal,
Zippy. May I call you Zippy?”
“Certainly, Bob,” he replied. With
a wave of his hand the feast vanished, leaving clean dishes behind; with
another wave those too vanished—ye gods, if I had an automatic dish-cleaning
spell alone back in Snyrgg I could have been rich—and in their place were two
snifters of brandy. “Is Bob your only name, or have you a more familiar one?”
“I’ll level with you, Zippy. My
parents, whoever they were, never named me. My fellow urchins used to call me
Pocks, for my childhood acne, which fortunately cleared up by the time I was
studying under Simon the Unsteady. He called me X for two years, until one day
he was so mad at me for screwing up a Mystic Fist spell and accidentally punching
his ear with my actual fist that he kicked me into the river. When he saw me
float around he started calling me Bob, and the name stuck. You could call me
Bobby.”
Mormor rose and took his glass,
gesturing me to follow. We left the hall. The corridors were well lit now, and
I was doing pretty good myself. Unlike me, however, the source of their
illumination was not evident. “I appreciate that you did not tell the lady of
my reputation,” Mormor said. “I assume, that as mage yourself, you’ve heard of
me.”
“Oh, a word here or there. You know
how they gossip around the club. Say, you wouldn’t have some old clothes I
could borrow, would you? I’m afraid my rags have been reduced to threads, and I
should hate to be socially unacceptable.”
“No fear on that score. In fact,
you may be needing an entirely new wardrobe soon.”
“Thanks, I—huh?”
“I mean, our nourishing food will
undoubtedly put some meat on your frame.”
“Oh, yes. Sure.”
“You know,” he said as we walked
past rows of bookcases filled with ancient tomes, “people do say things about
me, quite unfair things. That kind of gossip leads to poor judgment. Like that
imbecile Maximo, sending you out to get the Gallstone of the Gods. Maximo
thinks it can protect Tegora against wizardry, specifically mine. So he put you
to all that trouble, because of fear and ignorance, fired up by gossip.”
“Well, tongues will wag,” I said,
and then realized I had never told Suzy or him about my Gallstone-related
adventures.
“They say I’m evil. And yet my goal
is to bring all the world together in harmony. No more fighting amongst each
other, no more starving, no more prejudice and hate. No silly religions, no
city-states, no private property, nothing to make war about. Everyone united
for one simple purpose.”
“Ah.”
“To obey me.”
“Well, that is…”
“They even have the nerve to say my
island is evil. Bobby, I did not name this island. That was from back when
Gargothene the Odiferous lived on it. I just found it unoccupied and moved in.
I wanted to call it the People’s Island, but you can never get the
cartographers to change the names in a timely fashion.”
“The People’s Island. Hmm.”
“Yes, for the benefit of all. I
love the people.”
“Of course, of course.”
“So I built my castle here.”
“Well, now, about that, Zippy. You
think maybe people find the whole skull and bones theme a bit… off-putting?”
He sighed. “I hired an architect
who convinced me to go with the vision thing. Well, what can you do? Artists,
right? Say, let’s go down to the rec room.”
“Sure, sure. So, this love of
people thing. I guess it’s safe to say you have nothing to do with the freak
storms that shipwrecked me and almost killed me twice, did you?”
He stopped and turned, smiling.
“Oh, Bobby! If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be here to ask the question, I
assure you.” To illustrate, he held out the hand that was not carrying a glass
and, with a brief gesture, shot gouts of flame at me. I made an unmanly eeek! and dropped my glass, but the
flame never touched me. It roared past me on all sides, and singed the
furniture behind me, yet I was completely unharmed. Well, but for some flames
smoldering on stray hairs and threads.
“Right, right,” I said when it
ended. “Just, er, asking. I guess I just don’t know why you don’t want me dead. Aside from your love
of the people, that is.”
He took me by the elbow. He smelled
a bit of sulfur now. “Oh, Bobby, come along.” We passed under an arch to a
broad circular stairway, going down. “I should have hoped you wouldn’t ask such
a thing. I certainly gave you ample opportunity to perish, but you didn’t. Look
at you! You are a true survivor.”
“Um. Thanks?”
“Even when you thought Suzy was
dead, and you had no reason to go on living, you still found a way to keep
going,” he said, and my blood dropped about fifty degrees. We continued to
descend. “Yes, I followed your progress in my Mystic Mirror, even heard your
story as you told it to that silly old man Astercam. I was impressed, so I
decided to bring you here.”
“So you did control the waves. But
you almost turned me into strawberry jam on the rocks.”
“A final test, that’s all, and as
usual you survived. Just a moment.” He let go of me and snapped his fingers,
and I heard something like fifty-two bolts click open on a thick iron door. We
proceeded through into a large chamber full of sounds. “You may wonder what
that has to do with me still. After all, I have nothing much to gain from you.
I am far more learned, intelligent, wise, and powerful than you could ever hope
to be. Even without all that, I am your physical superior and much more
attractive to the fair Suzy. Oh, don’t gape like a fish, I haven’t touched her.
I need her as she is until she comes to me of her own volition. Here, just step
into this cell, thanks. As vast as this chamber is, with scores of corridors
with cells, it was difficult finding a spot for you, but it is only temporary,
as you shall see.”
“What do you want with Suzy?” I
said, trembling.
“She has a role to play,” he said,
snapping his fingers again. “It’s difficult to find genuine princesses who
maintain purity of any kind. Suzette is close enough. She’s a little weird; she
likes you, or did. You see, when you’re a mage who deals with devils, you find
that corruption of others is the most efficient means of amassing power. On
that score, Suzy is valuable to my plans. But by all means, please continue to
think of her fondly. It will make your time here much more useful, to me.
“I have known since I split my
first man limb from limb that even the toughest survivor will break when the
pain becomes great enough. Consider yourself lucky that you did not meet me a
few hundred years ago, when I was young and my experiments lacked finesse. Yes,
as you can see now in the adjacent cells, I still like to indulge in some
meaningless torture, although it is almost more for appearance’s sake than any
fun these days. That man across the way spilled wine on my best kidskin gloves;
I removed his face for him and twisted his limbs so he can sense nothing but
pain. The apparatus nearby records his thoughts, but they’re rather dull. Just
‘Aaagh.’ Hardly riveting.
“That woman— Well, I forget what she did, but it isn’t
important. The bubbling green spots on her skin are colonies of microscopic
imps I created. They breed like mad, eating what they need before bursting out
into the netherworld. Messy, of course, but she regenerates quickly thanks to
the tubes of fluid attached to her neck. She’ll last longer than the others did,
I think.
“And that man… Oh, why belabor the
point? These are some of my diversions, of which naturally the lady upstairs
knows nothing. And, as I’ve mesmerized you, I command you never to speak of
them to her. I’m sure your silent mind is reeling with thoughts of what I have
in store for you, Bobby, but you needn’t fear. My first experiment for you
won’t be terribly painful.
“I wish to find out whether a true survivor
can bear mental torture as well as the physical kind. To this end I am applying
two discoveries of mine, which that old fool Astercam incidentally brought up
through his work. I will this night create a duplicate of you, right down to
your dirty fingernails, of materials from the netherworld, which the lady will
find hanging by the neck in the quarters next to hers in the morning, along
with a very convincing suicide note, all about your awful past, your miserable existence,
your unworthiness—true to life, no? If this works, I will work on living
duplicates of certain potentates, all under my command, which will replace the
real things. But you’ve given me a chance to work on the technique.
“Now, as for you. Look here. Yes,
this is a gerbil cage, but you will call it home. Everything you ate tonight
from the fruit to the brandy contained a reducing powder of my design, and let
me say you’re looking smaller already. I anticipate an optimum lowness of five
inches, which ought to remove you from the running as a suitor for Suzy, eh?
She’ll think you dead anyway, and at that size you might as well be. But look
on the bright side. As long as you amuse me you shall have plenty of food, a
sandbox for your personal needs, and see? A little exercise wheel. Perhaps I’ll
toss in a rat or two from time to time to keep you busy. I think it shall be
fun! But when you do bore me, as you probably will, bear in mind that I have
some ideas for experiments on a tiny human as well.
“Well, I think that’s all for your
orientation, except to say that the shrinking process will probably leave you
feeling like your entire body is sucking in on itself, so you may experience
some discomfort. In fact, you may experience some agony. You see, Bobby, this
is what comes of trying to marry above your station.
“In five minutes you will snap out
of your trance, and then you may howl all you like. No one will hear you but
your fellow inmates, and they seem busy with their own howling, don’t they?
This is a lovely plate of despair I’ve handed you, and I can’t wait to see how
much you can consume before you go utterly insane.
“Oh, and one final thing: Zippy was fine when we were
good-fellows-well-met, but from now on it’s Lord Mormor to you, got it? Or just
Master. Have a pleasant evening.”
Five minutes later I joined the
chorus in my own dark little pit of hell.
[Well, this is the darkest spot Bob has ever been in! How can he escape? Maybe chapter 10 is EVEN DARKER! Better come back Friday and find out! Try not to lose sleep over it!]
