Books

    Mules, Knaves and Close Shaves

 
         Change comes in one way or another to the life of every man. However, when Alan Daele, a rut-stuck travel agent, finds himself whisked away to another world seconds after what’s probably the last shower he’ll take for a long while, he’s about to find out that change just might be a tad overrated.

Dragged into a world so bizarre, it’s almost normal; having only his towel as his garb and a razor his weapon, he’s forced on a Quest to – of course – defeat an evil Tyrant. After all, for what other reason could he be here in the first place?

With uncanny companions to guide the way, he’s also supposed to defeat said tyrant by unleashing the powers of Rock, Paper or Scissors… just because that’s apparently how things are done here.

With no one he can trust and a price on his head... come what may, all Alan can do is keep moving forward.

 For all he knows, that’s his only ticket home.

Mules, Knaves and Close Shaves, available now on Amazon. Here's your first chapter below. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

           When there’s a story you want to tell, how do you choose at what point to start it? Sure, you launch at the beginning, obviously, but that’s just the problem now, isn’t it? Where is the beginning? Figuring out which event set off the chain of reactions in question isn’t always that easy.

For me, though, for this particular story, well... it’s not that hard at all. I know exactly when this whole thing began, because none of it was my fault at all.

It all began on a day like any other, when  the god-awful alarm jarred me to consciousness that morning with all the subtlety of a landmine to the ear.

I wasn’t in the best of moods, as one never really is, seconds after being forcibly yanked back to harsh reality at six in the morning with a full day of paperwork ahead of them.

“Honey.”

“Unghrrwr.”

Oh, mornings. Always barging in too soon, unwanted, uncalled for. And then there was the dastardly herald, the clock still chirping with sadistic glee, the cheerful tone a drum in my ears.

“Honey.”

“Gonswerfive more minish,” I insisted. I squeezed my eyes shut and sank deeper into the covers.

Of course, it didn’t help. The clock kept chirping, as it always did. And likewise did my wife’s encore.

“Honey,”

“Alright, alright,” I moaned.

I propped myself up on one elbow and blinked. There it was, the fiend, buzzing on the dresser conveniently, of course, out of reach. I grunted, stretched and yanked it towards me. Up close and personal, the infuriating tone hammered home the nail already halfway through my skull.

“Honey,” Mona whispered again.

“I’m doing it, I’m doing it,” I mumbled. I raised my fist and let it hover as I groggily took bearings. I released. I felt impact.

There was Silence.

Blessed, beautiful Silence.

I closed my eyes tighter and stuffed my face deeper into the warm, soft pillow. The sheets were cozier than I had ever known them and the pillow… oh the pillow. In all its nights of faithful service, it had never felt this good.

I cut the anchor and began to drift off again. The dream was around the corner, somewhere… I couldn’t remember it, I knew I wouldn’t, but I was going to try and see…

“Honey.”

My eyes scraped open. There was pain. There was agony.

“Now,” I whimpered, “WHAT?”

“You don’t want to be late again. Remember yesterday.”

I sighed and turned around to stuff my face into my soft, warm pillow.

“Scrooyeshtideh.”

“Honey.”

“Five moh minish.”

“Honey.”

It was gone. Over. Not coming back.

“Alright, alright, I’m GOING.”

Hands balled into fists, I pushed myself up and balanced on my arms, prepared to roll over the side.

“Hey, Alan,” she added, turning over, “Don’t forget the dry cleaners.”

My suit. The wedding anniversary. The dinner we’d planned months ago and forgotten till just that moment, halfway out of bed on a bleak Wednesday morning. There’s nothing like a ray of sunshine at the end of a dreary day to convince one to get out of bed in the morning, and with that to boost me up, I quite agreeably pushed off and toppled over the edge of the bed.

I couldn’t be blamed for not wanting to go to work; I was twenty-five, with four years of my career as a travel agent stuck tighter in the rut than the stick up my boss’s rear. To be honest, the prospect of getting fired didn’t bother me anymore. Heck, I’d even welcome the vacation.

The freezing water went to great lengths to ruin my mood again, and the pile of paperwork on my desk since the evening before returned to haunt me as I chased the soap around the inside of the tub.

Still, I had to count my blessings. For instance, it was a blessing there was actual running water in the apartment so far; and from the state of the rest of the building, it was a blessing we didn’t fall through the floor on the way to the kitchen.

Funny I should put it that way.

Roughly twenty minutes since I’d hit the floor groaning, I stepped out of the shower with towel wrapped around my waist and dripped  my way over to the sink. Of course, I was fully aware of how Mona would give me an earful for it when I returned, but I couldn’t be bothered with my mood the way it was. Besides, it gave me dark satisfaction after her atrocious behavior this morning to see the vision of her mopping it up in my mind’s eye.

That image still in mind, I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared into a more depressing one: my bloodshot eyes. Horns blared and tires screeched, the sounds shoving their way through the tiny window to entertain me with their tidings. Another day of crowded streets and sardine packed subway trains, claustrophobic office cubicle and stacks of paper no one ever looked at.

Today was not one of those days, though. Today was different. Tomorrow may be back to the grind, but today was going to end with just Mona and me, a romantic and yet affordable incandescent bulb lit dinner at that place three blocks away. Today, I could get away from the monotony, and go back to when it all used to have meaning… for at least a couple of hours. It was something.

And today, I noticed, I needed a shave.

Shaving cream lathered over my face and my razor dripping and ready for the slash, I felt the need to yawn and stretch. Why, I probably will never know. Perhaps my body somehow sensed what was going to occur next and tried to get a last yawn out before too late. It probably also saved my facial muscles the wear and tear of having to open my mouth all over again to scream later on.

See, I’m not sure how exactly it happened. But looking back on it, what I remember was one second I was standing on slippery wet tile… and the next, I wasn’t. The reason why was because, simply put, there was no tile anymore. Or floor either, for that matter.

I was, purely stated, standing on air. It was the moment when I was still in mid yawn with my arms stretched and the towel straining around my midsection when the epiphany finally hit.

Today was definitely going to end different, and something else told me things were about to go downhill very fast.

Quite literally, and very fast. In fact, I wasn’t standing anymore. Gravity had shown up, and now I was falling.

Hence the scream.

And then, I landed.

Hard.

If I‘d spun around and done a few twirls on the way down, I didn’t remember; all I was processing was pain. I was on my back, spread eagled, feeling like I had just fallen off a three story building. I blinked, and my vision slowly came into focus just in time to notice a great big pink bat fluttering above me.

My towel.

Which wasn’t around my waist, where it was supposed to have been. Which also meant there was nothing around my waist anymore.

I groaned and slowly sat up, my spine screaming bloody murder and my head throbbing in agony. Above and to the left, my towel gave a final flap and fell gracefully in a crumpled heap a couple of feet away, conveniently out of reach.

So there I was, sitting in my birthday suit in an immense dark room at the foundations of our ratty apartment building. That towel was needed.

I tried to stand, but my left elbow buckled and threw me sideways onto my face. It was when I involuntarily jerked my head up and spat feathers out of my mouth that I realized something wasn’t quite right.

Feathers.

It was a pile of feathers I was on, a hundred tiny poking points on my bare flesh that I hadn’t noticed amidst the other, more immediate pain taking dominance. I picked up a handful and let them fall slowly.

The heap wasn’t even more than four inches high. In all fairness, I should have had multiple fractures or be dead, whichever was more painful. Not that I was complaining, but… physics.

I managed to clamber to my feet the second time. My limbs seemed to be more or less in working order, I noticed. I took a tentative step, and a gust of wind down under reminded me of how my first priority was still the towel.

Falling goodness knows how far down to land in some forgotten basement was appalling enough; doing it naked was asking for trouble. After all, there could be eyes on me that very minute, and I hadn’t been hitting the gym as often as I’d have liked for the last few months. Many months.

I limped and shuffled through the feathers, and when my bare foot touched cold stone, I shivered violently. I bent down to pick up the towel and missed. Standing again, I breathed in and steadied myself. On the third try, I managed to grab it, and with a groan of triumphant agony, I pulled it up and draped it back around myself as quickly as my stiff fingers allowed.

The battle won, I finally steadied myself for a look around.

It wasn’t dark, but it wasn’t very bright either. I couldn’t see where the light was coming from; it was as if it was being faintly reflected off the walls or something of the sort. I could make out the color of my hands and the floor for about ten feet ahead, but beyond was all gloom. The walls could have been just beyond there or miles away and I wouldn’t know the difference.

I craned my head backwards to look up at the hole I’d fallen through.

Or rather, I tried to. There was no hole where there should have been a hole, which did not make sense, since even in that murky darkness, I should have been able to have seen at the very least a pinprick sized glimpse of our bathroom’s stained ceiling.

Instead, it was just gloom and darkness extending out for as far as I could see. Excuse the irony there. Wherever I was, it could have been the size of a broom closet or a football stadium and there was no way to know which. Till now, my brain had been too busy running system checks after the fall to be bothered about being afraid; but then it was at this point when I remembered Mona and I lived on the third floor.

My sluggish, confused mind finally got around to shifting to panic gear.

If my woozy calculations were correct, I should have fallen right through the lousy apartments beneath our lousy one to land in the one-could-only-imagine-how-lousy basement.

Except that this didn’t feel like any basement I had ever been in, lousy or otherwise.

I raised my hand to my head and swayed slightly. I didn’t remember hitting anything on the way down, which was odd, since there had to have been the floors of the apartments beneath ours. A busted floor just in front of our sink wasn’t all that unbelievable, to be totally honest; but a direct link to the foundations of the building? Some things aren’t supposed to happen, and as far as I could tell, this was one of them.

My mind snapped to that very frightening fact like a rubber band: I had fallen three floors. It had certainly seemed like three floors on the way down, of which I was faintly certain. I was still more or less alive, with bones only feeling like they had been broken, especially after the only thing to break my fall was a heap of feathers barely four inches thick.

My mind raced to put together the variables and come up with a coherent answer, and with a few seconds of pain which might have been either a headache or signs of a fractured skull, it did.

I was dreaming.

I breathed a sigh of relief. This was a dream, and a rather lucid one, considering.

I shrugged and cracked my fingers. I knew just what to do. Squaring my shoulders, I spread my arms, bounded forward and then leaped high, striking my best Superman pose.

If I did fly, it didn’t last very long. I landed hard on my elbows, and it was far, far too painful to have been a dream.

“YOWCH!”

“Welcome, Champion. Verily, thy arrival beith fortuitous indeed.”

The voice was deep, awe inspiring, and had come from directly behind me. Prone on the ground with my bare chest freezing against the stone, I froze, very aware of just how undignified a position it is to present oneself butt-first to someone else.

“‘Fortuitous’? You zapped him here, you pompous goat.”

The second wheezy voice couldn’t have been more of a contrast to the former Morgan Freeman version without having been female. As it was, it prodded me to scramble to my feet and spin around, which I very much needed right then.

As it happened, I hadn’t been alone after all. Standing before me were the Grim Reaper and an old, rheumatic Ebenezer Scrooge.

“YAAAAH!!”

“Hello to you, too.” Scrooge… whatever his name was… replied, rolling his eyes. Short and balding, the only bits of hair on his otherwise shiny bald dome were the tufts over his ears, which might have explained the scowl I had a feeling was his expression when relaxed. He wore what looked like a flowery purple dressing gown, and leaned on a thick piece of wood with no distinguishing features other than the fact it looked thick enough to clobber one over the back of the head with and not leave a mark.

On the stick, that is.

Hunched, scowling, bald… he looked like… well, an old, wheezy Scrooge.

And next to him: the Grim Reaper, minus the scythe and in Halloween costume. Assuming Death swapped black robes for green on Halloween and wore classy deep green gloves that looked sinister yet so… cool. Death was eight feet tall, and both terrifying and stylish.

My heart pounding in my ears, I took a couple of steps backward, just to keep some distance between me and the stick and those gloves. My bare heel landed on something hard and sharp, and I hopped forward again with a second involuntary yell.

“Excitable, aren’t we?” Scrooge observed.

“Who,” I asked, choosing my words with care, as I balanced precariously on one foot, “the… hell… are you?”

There was a shallow gash on my heel. I’d stepped on the blade of my razor, the same one I’d been holding just when I’d fallen. Shaving cream dripped off my chin and onto my cold, bare chest.

“I’m the translator,” Scrooge said, with an impatient shrug, “And this here,” he waved a hand at his significantly taller companion, “is Eduud, Summoner of Champions and the Granter of Choices and blah, blah, blah-betty blah. There we go, meet and greet done. Let’s just get this over with.”

“That made absolutely NO sense,” I said, putting my foot down and gingerly taking another step back, “What are you doing, squatting in the basement? Seriously, there had to be better dumps than this out there.”

“You’re not home anymore, kid,” the translator said, scratching at one wobbly jowl, “And we’re certainly not squatters.”

“What do you mean I’m…?”

Words failed me, and all I could do was swallow. For want of some kind of action, I lunged at the ground, grabbed the razor and brandished it at them. As fierce as I hoped my expression was, inside I cringed. As if there was any possible way I could have harmed them with it.

“Where am I?” I demanded, pointing the razor at the old man, and determinedly keeping my eyes away from Death.

“You’re going to find out soon enough,” the translator said, clicking his tongue impatiently, “Can we begin, already?”

“Who the hell are you?” I repeated, panicking freely, “And this time, English would be nice.”

The old man closed his eyes and shook his head.

“You’re up, Eduud,” he waved a hand.

The Green Reaper spread his arms, his emerald robes rippling like water.

“Welcome, Champion,” he boomed.

The sinister cowl stood fixed, like it had been carved out of rock, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to catch a glimpse of the face underneath in full daylight, let alone this darkness.

And speaking of darkness… with a jolt that yanked my stomach down to my knees, I realized the faint light in the room was coming out of him. His… its… robes glowed a soft, warm green which somehow lit up a little ten foot circle around him.

Where had he been when I first landed? Invisible?

Before I could say a word, the robe pulsed and the color lightened. Maybe I was hallucinating, the fall probably having knocked me silly. Or maybe I was dead, and was about to go to hell for sending that couple to France and their luggage to Korea last month.

But Eduud was definitely glowing.

“Thine arrival beith at the most opportune of moments,” he boomed, the bright green waxing and waning as he spoke, “For nigh cometh the time whence thine people wouldst calleth upon thine talents for the good of all.”

“Nice of you to drop by, good timing, we’ve got a job for you,” the translator interrupted in a dull drone. He leaned forward on his stick, the expression none too happy on his face. From the looks of things, he was expecting to be standing there for a while and didn’t seem too pleased with the prospect.

Neither was I.

“Evil hath returneth,” Eduud continued, “and into peril plungeth the realm.”

“A bad guy showed up, and we’re, as you would probably put it, screwed.”

“‘Evil’?” I echoed. “He said evil. Evil is never good.”

“Nice to know you’re familiar with the basics, son.”

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up arms and defend thy people from tyranny?”

Arms spread wide, Eduud’s cowl finally shifted. He was looking right at me, and I felt goosebumps spread like wildfire.

“This,” Scrooge said, “is the part where you say yes, and we move on.”

He inclined his head at me.

“Say yes to what, exactly?” I asked, uncomfortably.

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up arms and defend thy people from tyranny?”

“Say yes to that,” Scrooge jerked his head.

I brandished the razor at them again.

“Alright, wait, hang on, now…”

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up arms and defend thy peoples from tyranny?”

Eduud’s voice had grown perceptively louder. My heart was jackhammering in my chest. Bad enough tension was building, worse was I still didn’t have a clue what in the world was happening.

And to top it off, I was still sleepy, darn it.

“Hurry along, kid,” Scrooge snapped, “we’re on schedule.”

“I… no… look,” I said, pointing at him, “I have no idea what in the…”

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up arms and defend thy peoples from tyranny?”

I wasn’t imagining it; the color was brightening.

Scrooge sighed and shook his head.

“Look kid, there are no two ways about it. The only answer you have is ‘yes’. Eduud has a nasty habit of fixating on things till he’s satisfied.”

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up arms and defend thy peoples from tyranny?”

Scrooge nodded at him, “See?”

“Alright, STOP!” I threw up my hands and took a step away, wincing as my cut heel stung. I glared at Scrooge with as much ferocity as I could muster, and at that moment, I had plenty to spare.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or what this is, but I’m late for work already and if I…”

“Wilt thou, Champion, taketh up…”

“Enough already!’ I said, raising my voice, “I want to know…”

“Wilt THOU, CHAMPION,” Eduud bellowed, his form literally swelling, ballooning up to terrifying proportions as Scrooge took a casual sidestep away, “taketh up ARMS and DEFEND THINE PEOPLE from TYRANNY?”

The voice slammed into me like a thunderclap, the power so palpable I almost sat on the cold tiles again, bare skin and all.

“Sir, yes, sir,” I squeaked, all the fight drained out of me, just like that.

Scrooge chuckled, “Warned you, didn’t I?”

“Then, Champion,” Eduud said, thankfully shrinking to his originally eight feet, which was already intimidating to begin with, “I now charge thee to seeketh out the Armament and defeat the Tyrant that hath arisen.”

“You have to find the weapon and defeat the bad guy,” Scrooge intoned, “Preferably before he defeats you. Any questions?”

I swallowed, “What just…?”

“To aid thee in thy Quest, Champion,” Eduud interrupted, “I offer thy Choice of the Powers Three. Choose, as thou wouldst…”

“Sorry, son.” Scrooge said.The end of his walking stick began to tap on the ground, soft, fast beats that could have betrayedanxiety, “ We’re pressed for time. Questions later,”

He hastily limped aside, making way between the three of us as Eduud spread his arms again. The man… it… had a taste for the dramatic.

“Behold!” Eduude proclaimed, “The Strength of Boulders!”

In the space between us, a foot tall flickering projection of Dwayne Johnson’s long lost brother popped into life. The thing gave me a dirty look, and then started to strut and flex muscles which would have flipped a car over without breaking a sweat.

A similarly proportioned car, of course.

Dazed as I was, it took me a few minutes to process what I was seeing. There was a bodybuilder no taller than my knee sauntering in the midst of us where there had definitely not been a knee high bodybuilder sauntering before.

“How did…?!”

“The Wisdom of Pages!” Eduud boomed.

With a soft pop, a second figure appeared. This one wore white robes and had a sagely beard dangling down to his waist. There was a second pop, and with it came a pile of tiny pieces of wood and other debris settling at his feet.

“W-what are those?” I stammered, “H-holograms?”

Scrooge gave me a smile.

“Watch,” he said.

The tiny bearded person threw a look of utter condescension at the tiny bulked person. The latter smirked and flexed his beefy bicep, and in reply the former crouched at the pile of rubbish at his feet.

A few heartbeats later he stood, and trundling along at his feet was an even smaller miniature medieval catapult-thing, with the throwing arm and all.

I was dreaming. I had to be still in bed. Any moment now, the alarm would ring….

The barbarian noticed the tiny contraption and bent over to have a better look as it rolled right up to his feet. Nothing happened, and he began to guffaw, his voice hilariously high pitched and wheezy.

Then the arm snapped forward, and a stone the size of a marble sailed up and caught him right between the legs.

My own hands moved instinctively to my crotch as he doubled over in minuscule agony. The lethal little arm swung again, and this time the marble hit him between the eyes. He went out like a light, falling comically and landing with a crash which made the tiny images shudder.

“Harsh,” Scrooge commented.

My heart went out to the little guy.

“The Skill of Blades!” Eduud proclaimed.

This time, I wasn’t as surprised when a third figure appeared. This one drew a thin sword out of a sheath at its side and commenced twirling it around like ninja. The scholar/engineer/old smart guy bent down again, but before he could even begin, the other thrust his sword through him and drew it out again in the blink of an eye.

“Harsher,” Scrooge said, conversationally.

The scholar clutched at his wound and fell with theatrical slowness. He began to vanish slowly, disappearing to nothing by the time he’d landed on his back. The little catapult collapsed and vanished with him.

Triumphant, the swordsman started twisting and flipping his sword again in pure conceit and satisfaction. He didn’t notice as the barbarian behind him sat up, shook his head, and climbed back onto is feet.

The swordsman turned just as the barbarian crossed over to him in two steps. A beefy fist connected with smug face and smug face flew backwards and right out of the image.

The barbarian raised his arms in celebration, and without further warning, he vanished.

The show was over, and my jaw was dangling a few inches off the floor.

“What…” I whispered, “Was THAT?”

“Visual aid,” Scrooge replied.

“Choose well, and heed this warning,” Eduud boomed, “Only once shalt thou recieveth this choice. Should thou Chooseth unwisely, swiftly shalt thine doom follow.”

“Choice?” I sputtered, “Now I have a choice? Great, I choose to get the hell out of here and back to bed!”

“All the trouble we go to and you don’t even pay attention,” Scrooge snapped, annoyed, “Kids these days will be the death of me. You have to pick one of those three to use to complete the Quest with. Come on, it wasn’t so hard to figure out.”

“But… but…” my knees started to wobble and I racked my brains, searching for something to say. There was a sign hanging on the door of my creative department which read ‘Out to lunch’.

“What Quest?” I finished, lamely.

Scrooge sighed in exasperation and passed a hand over his forehead.

“A real winner you picked this time, Eduud,” he groaned, then pointed a gnarled finger at me.

“Look, kid,” he said, “This isn’t fun and games. You’ve been Chosen, you have a Quest to complete, and there are things out there ready to rip you limb from limb. You get to pick one of these three, though a fat lot of help any would do a buffoon like you. You might as well ask Eduud to kill you now and save them the trouble.”

Later on, several choice replies came to mind. For example, there was the “I just fell down a hole with no explanation. You don’t get to threaten me!” and the “If you don’t let me get back up there, I’ll have you arrested for manhandling.”; also, brought to you by the part of me still believing this to be a dream: “You think you’re tough, Eduud? Come at me, bro!!”

Right then, though, like it always happens, all I could think of to say was, “Uh. Okay.”

Scrooge shrugged and spread his arms, “Go on. Choose.”

“Uh… um…”

“It’s not so hard,” Scrooge waved his hand. “Only life or death.”

“What happens if I choose wrong?” I demanded.

“Well, you fail the quest,” Scrooge shrugged, “And usually when that happens, you die. And… not going to lie to you, kid, but it’s not going to be pretty either.”

I swallowed.

“Choose!” Eduud boomed.

I ran a dry tongue over my dry lips.

“Uh… um… I choose…”

I didn’t.

The floor shuddered, and an explosion somewhere off to my left sent a wave of force which knocked me off my feet. My head slammed against stone.

“Oh crud,” Scrooge said, his voice unsettled, “They found us,”

“WHO DARES…?” Eduun demanded, turning to face the disturbance, his size expanding again.

“Who found us?!” I moaned.

The ground was shuddering under my ear, trembling and bouncing in a rhythm somehow oddly familiar. Light, golden yellow light was pooling into the chamber, and it was coming from a large hole in a wall probably fifty feet away.

I squinted, but the light blinded me, and I couldn’t see anything beyond the jagged aperture. What I could see, though, were three columns of shadowy figures marching toward us.

I understood why the vibrations under my ear were so familiar. I’d heard it on TV countless times: the sound of a marching army. And this army was starting to form up in two lines, a corridor from the hole to us. More kept pouring out through the hole, and the lines kept getting longer.

And closer to us.

“Who are they?” I yelped.

“They don’t matter,” Scrooge muttered, “He’s here.”

“Who?!”

Scrooge turned, and his eyes disappeared under his bushy eyebrows in a scowl so full of ferocity, it made Eduud look normal.

“THIS is why we told you to choose!” he barked.

“I’ll choose!” I exclaimed, scrambling to my feet, “I’ll choose!”

“Too late,” he snapped, “Stand behind me and keep quiet.”

The lines of soldiers reached us, and I finally had a good look at them. To my half blinded eyes, they were all identical, and they were all bizarrely dressed in what had to be armor from a King Arthur movie, with metal helmets, swords in belts and small, extremely lethal looking crossbows held at attention in covered in metal pieces.

My mind optimistically chose that moment to suggest for the umpteenth time how this had to be a dream. After all, I had just taken a shower in my own bathroom barely half an hour ago and I had the towel, the razor, and a few patches of shaving cream left to prove it.

The last soldier marched into place, both lines ending ten feet away from us. Without a word, they all spun to face the narrow lane that the two columns had formed.

The sounds were too loud, and the pictures were too distinct to be a dream. But…

The soldiers shifted and stood at attention. And out there, the blinding light began to dim, like something big was getting in its way.

“Yep,” Scrooge muttered. “It’s him.”

“Courage, Bass,” Eduud said, his deep voice still sounding powerful enough to send tremors down my spine. But even so, his voice was lowered.

If Eduud, the Summoner of Whassis and Conjurer of Tricks was afraid of whomever it was now stomping towards the hole from the other side…

The ground shuddered again, and then a large shadow completely blocked out the light. I heard Scrooge… Bass… breathe in sharply.

“Behold, Champion, the lackey of thine enemy,” Eduud said, “I shalt gather for thee the time thou shalt need to seek the Armament and join thine allies.”

With the light behind it, all I could make out was the silhouette of whatever it was now climbing through the hole. No one needed twenty-twenty vision to know that it was stomping toward us, though. More importantly, stomping towards me.

“What?” I demanded, reasonably distracted.

“He’s going to sacrifice himself to save your sorry behind,” Bass said, cracking his knuckles.

“What?!”

The silhouette looked human; at least, it had two arms and two legs. But this thing was nine feet tall, and as it trudged towards us, it looked thrice my size around the middle. And it was getting closer.

“Take a good look, kid,” Bass said, now shrugging his shoulders, “There’s who you’re going to have to kill soon enough. And he’s just the lap dog.”

“Are we going to f-fight?!” I stammered, crouching behind the old man.

Bass turned around to look at me.

“You?” he scoffed, “Like that? Why don’t you just hand yourself over and be done with it? No.” He looked at Eduud. The Summoner’s robes had changed color; bizarrely, they weren’t green anymore, but purple.

The lap dog was three quarters down the human corridor. As I watched him stride towards us, dominating the room with his sheer presence, I felt pretty darned lucky I’d emptied my bladder not too long ago.

“Hail, Summoner,” he rumbled, his voice as deep as Eduud’s and much, much nastier, “I see you’ve managed to find your Champion.”

“Prepare thyself, Bass.” Eduud murmured, crossing his arms.

With the light from the hole blinding me, I still couldn’t see more than the immense size and the dark outline of the person who I had to kill, but it was enough to tell me I’d bitten off more than I could chew at an all-night buffet with me the only guest of honor. Which was ironic, since all I wanted to do that morning was sign another stack of forms and send another couple to somewhere they would probably regret hours after landing.

Maybe it wasn’t irony, after all. It was probably just deserts. And here I was, on the brink of death, making food puns.

“Come out here, Champion, so I can take a good look at you,” the guy boomed.

“Thou shalt not set eyes upon the Champion this day,” Eduud said, “But I promise thee, When his sword pierceth thine black’nd heart, fiend, thou shalt look upon the face of the Champion thou seekest.”

“I did not come here to fight you, Summoner, but I will if I have to,” the shadow replied, “So step aside. I have a Champion to maim.”

Eduud spread his arms, and the magenta exploded outwards in a dazzling halo. The soldiers at the front of the two rows buckled and fell, and the immense lap dog yelled in pain and stepped back with a log sized arm across his face.

“FLY, BASS!” Eduud’s voice bellowed.

“Come ON!” Bass yelled, spinning around and sprinting past me, faster than you would have expected a geezer like him to have run. His fingers closed on my wrist, and before I could react, I was being dragged behind him, away from the others.

“AFTER THEM!” I heard the voice roar, “DON’T LET THEM MAKE THE JUMP!”

“What jump?!” I yelled.

“Jump!” Bass bawled.

And, just like that, I was falling again.

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