The world had a purple tint if you squinted at an angle. Hazard of being sourced from a simpleton with a magic crayon.
I shivered as a dragon shadow passed over me. If the Old Beast swooped down and destroyed me, no one would be notified of my passing...and I had nothing available to prepare myself for such a fierce battle.
...So the Great G'iar of The Glaive of G'gaur'u cowered in foliage until the dragon passed. Not proud, but I know my limitations.
I resumed my trek through the forest. A light gust tousled my long, stringy hair, carrying with it the scents of pine, cedar and damp soil. My armored boots clomped through muddy soil. A hidden stream gurgled.
Although my sword sheath brushed against my breastplate and other articles, Glaive armor itself, handcrafted by Glaive elves, makes no sound, making it a perfect choice for elvish assassins...especially considering the lightweight, airy properties of the material.
I'd been hiking through the forest of Sch'chir'd'pka for hours. Nothing but redwoods, pines and cedars for miles in every direction. Unfortunate oversight on my part, not fully fleshing out this wooded area with points of interest, landmarks, inhabitants and/or readily available food sources. I did, however, locate the babbling stream and drink from its crisp, refreshing mouthwash colored waters.
I may have exaggerated somewhat when I told publishers G'gaur'u is greater than Narnia, Harry Potter and Middle Earth combined. Of course, any author would find their fictional realm lacking if they suddenly found themselves existing in it as a literal reality.
Case in point: My elaborately crafted romance story. The moment I set foot in this magical place, a fictional world of my own devising, I might add, I discovered the heart of my lovely elven queen, Ter'li'ana, belonged to another.
Not supposed to happen. I specifically wrote her to have feelings for no man, save for the handsome Prince Gar-Glaibe, but no. In swooped the twice-as-handsome elf wizard with his fancy staff and robes, literally sweeping her off her feet with his sorcery.
Unlucky in love, even in my own F'pk'rrn story!
Honestly, not certain if this came from proper character development or Harold's unjust meddling, but it did seem like the kind of unpleasant trick such a goody-two-shoes would play on his foes.
Once more, I shouted at the top of my lungs, "Curse you, Wizard C'th'verka N'sb't, for stealing my woman! And curse you, Harold, for wrecking my story!"
Gasping and weary from my travels, I seated myself on a hollow log.
I uncorked a second flask of X't'mi'g'ce, which, thankfully, did not taste like crayons, but rather an orange-carrot-kale smoothie. Wouldn't have gotten through the first five miles without the stuff. In the real world, I seldom hike more than a quarter mile in a given day.
The day I met Harold began like any other day, with Mother throwing a cup of water in my face.
At 2 A.M.
Not a pleasant sight to wake to, the scowling frog face in the semi-darkness, like the love child of Mama Fatelli from The Goonies and ET when they put a wig on his head and made him dress like a woman.
My bedroom, decorated with pewter dragons, posters of wizards, Hobbits and scantily clad warrior broads - not enough to offset the horror of that face. Also, same unwashed bathrobe she'd been wearing for a week straight.
Didn't smell too wonderful, either. Two months ago, I had the audacity to suggest that she take a shower. She responded by hitting me in the head with a frying pan and calling me a S.O.B.
"We're out of Monster Energy Drinks and Coke."
I groaned and rubbed my eyes. "You got two cans left in the fridge."
"I need...one...two...three...four..."
That's Dementia speak for "There absolutely has to be a total of six cans in the fridge at all times."
"Just make yourself some coffee! It's half the amount of caffeine, which is important right now because I have to work today!"
She reacted like I hadn't said anything. "I need...one...two...three...four..."
I cast my bleary eyes at the alarm clock. "Mother, it's two in the morning. The grocery stores aren't open at this hour."
I closed my eyes again.
"You don't care about anybody but yourself."
"That's right, Mother, I don't. Now, could you please let me sleep?"
She didn't say yes or no. "I'm still having problems swallowing from when the spaghetti noodle went into my lung. I think I need to go to the hospital."
"Mother, that was two months ago. Surely by now the natural bacteria and...white blood cells have broken down that flipping pasta noodle by now! Please bother me with some other imaginary ailment - actually, bother someone else with it!"
"Homeland Security is tearing up our street. You've seen those big orange tubes - they're cables for their cameras to spy on us."
"Mother, I told you yesterday that's Spectrum Cable!" I covered my head with my pillow, attempting to drown out the noise.
Earplugs, I thought. I simply must invest in earplugs.
"You have no right to live here, you lazy dirtbag. I should get the police to throw you out of my house."
Mom followed this up with something about not being able to find the television remote, and I caught roughly 2.5 hours of blissful slumber.
She brought out the electric hedge trimmers, the windows of my attic bedroom conducting the abrasive buzzing directly into my unwelcoming ears. I forced my mind not to contemplate what mortal perils would soon befall her in her quest to perfectly manicure the yard in the dark, what emergency items would require my immediate attention. An unplugged power cable, perhaps?
6 A.M. She again douses me with water. "Wake up, you lazy slob!"
I rubbed my eyes. "What do you want now, you old hag?"
"I already told you I'm out of drinks!"
"It's 6 A.M.! The store still isn't open!"
"You're just saying that because you don't want to get them for me!"
"No, I'm saying that because the stores don't open until eight!"
She did not comment on this. "I still can't find the remote."
Although I prided myself on a neat and tidy bedroom, the rest of the house showed evidence of hoarding. Not something I could stop - Mother refused to throw anything away.
It took me ten minutes, but I eventually found the remote inside the refrigerator, behind bottles of expired milk and a rotten head of lettuce.
The moment after I handed her the remote, I set about discarding those and other disgusting items.
She hit me with a frying pan.
"What! What is it now!"
"Look at you, wasting money we don't have! Throwing away perfectly good food!"
"Mother, this stuff is moldy, and needs to be thrown into the garbage!"
"Fine! If you're going to waste food, let's waste food!" She threw a brand new box of cereal, cookies, and a fresh package of hot dogs into the trash.
"Dammit, Mother! I just bought those!"
She threw a can of pork and beans into the garbage can. "You threw away perfectly good food! We might as well throw everything in the kitchen!" She reached into the fridge, tossing the vegetable tray I bought yesterday.
Note: Not one of her Oreo cookies, family sized bags of M&M's, or cherry turnovers went into the garbage. Just the nutritious food people consume when they don't want diabetes.
"Fine, fine! You're right! I surrender! Let's put it all back!" I dug everything out of the trash and put it back where I'd found it, including the rotten stuff. She grabbed a bottle of my Kombucha and trashed it, just to spite me. Then she hit me with the frying pan again.
"You S.O.B.! Wasting my food I paid for with my social security!" When the woman had an axe to grind, she wouldn't stop grinding, even after she won.
"Mom, I bought those groceries with my paycheck, not yours."
Mom didn't react.
Since I could no longer go back to sleep anyway, I did the dishes, prepared myself breakfast.
Gnats circled around the sink and counters, birthed from rotten items in an unknown location. The whole room smelled like burnt coffee and old food.
Not much available counter space in that kitchen, on account of the multitude of food packages and debris. The empty plastic cinnamon roll container had been the site of a similar food battle we had a month ago. Other people just don't know how one person's piece of garbage can be another's Helen of Troy.
As usual, Mom had compulsively maintained the water level on the Mister Coffee until it overflowed all over the kitchen counter and puddled on the floor. The raised bump on the back of my head had taught me this golden rule: Honor thy Mother's sacred Coffee Machine and keep it holy, or thou shalt receive a concussion. Haven't touched the damn thing since.
I begin the day with yogurt and granola, a smoothie, or a glass of Kombucha. Nothing but vegan fare for me. I was determined to not let the presence of a mouse darting across the floor spoil a good breakfast.
I did however, cast a scolding eye at a lazy calico licking its paws next to our refrigerator.
Overflowing food dish. Clearly not enough mouse catching motivation.
Mother zombie shuffled through the kitchen in her stained house slippers, practically tripping over the long bathrobe she dragged along. "Normal men your age are already married and have children."
"Well that's just too bad, mom. Life doesn't always work out the way you want it."
I bought the damn energy drinks. Did she reward me for being a good son and going to the store? No. The moment I unlocked the front door and stepped into the house, she got up from the couch and shrieked at me, throwing Precious Moments figurines. "You S.O.B.! You should be in jail, breaking into my house without permission!"
"Mom, I had the key!"
But she was already dialing 9-1-1.
I tried to intercept the call, but still ended up having a very awkward conversation with Rhode Island's Finest.
At this point, Mom's brain shifted gears without a clutch, and she accused me of abandoning her for six hours a day to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, friends, incidentally, who have moved out to California ten years ago and stopped talking to me.
She digressed into a rant about me throwing away perfectly good food. The officers promptly lost interest in arresting me.
Of course I arrived at work late.
Yes, I work at a library.
Got a Bachelors in Library Science, obviously connected to my lifelong dream of becoming a famous published author. If you want to start a restaurant chain, begin working in someone else's restaurant. Einstein worked in a patent office.
Fairly impressive building, in comparison to other, smaller branch locations of Providence. Doric columns out front, making it look like the Parthenon, up-to-date computer equipment, well tended books and media. My home away from home.
Only clean smells here. New books. Carpet cleaner. Aromatherapy candles.
Not a big business. No surprise that we had few staff members. Only one male employee: Me.
My boss, Sheryl, stood a foot shorter than me. Ten years my senior, she facially resembled a brown toad in hornrims. Black hair pinched back in a bun, clothing choices...always questionable. Today: A formal blouse and stretchy leather pants. "Hey, Gary. Fifth time this week. Going for a new tardiness record?"
I hated to expose my vulnerabilities to people. They tended to exploit them. "Elderly parent issues," I mumbled. "It's outside my control."
Sheryl sighed and crossed her arms. "What do you think, you gonna put her in a home?"
"I...I dunno. Her cats are her life. I think the move would break her. Plus I don't know how I'd pay for it...Unless, perhaps, I somehow acquire a publishing contract..."
She scoffed. "I'm gonna look up some government assistance programs for you, sugar."
We're librarians. We do that kind of stuff.
I went about my work. Nothing fantastic or special about it: Basic housekeeping, checking books in and out, shelving books, preparing books for interlibrary loans, helping kids figure out a library catalog. I aided the elderly with things like Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, and...US Cablevision's online fraud dispute form, assisted a teen with resume help, showed a Spanish gentleman (with help from Google Translate) how to get to a bus station.
I can do what I want during breaks and lunches (or certain times of day where people don't ever come in, because (ahem) people have forgotten how magical it is to step inside a library and peruse the literature), so I scheduled a special reading of my novel, Glaive of G'Gaur'u.
A disappointing amount of empty chairs in that mini-conference area. I'd seen no name authors of insipid Civil War books bring in a larger turnout. Despite all the fliers and advertising, only two people in attendance: A homeless man and some old guy who probably thought I was George R.R. Martin.
Oh, and Bella, but she works with me.
Right. Didn't mention her yet. Goth chick, just turned twenty. Kind of the library mascot. Piercings, studded dog collar, punk outfits. Throughout the course of her employment, she'd dyed her hair just about every color of the rainbow at least twice. Doesn't like men, but found drafts of my novel interesting for some reason.
I went through all the trouble of printing up a mock up display for my book, with posters and a cardboard cut and everything, and this is my turnout. Waste of breath, to be honest. I only followed through for practice, for when I got published for real. I read my favorite excerpts. If the job is going to be thankless, at least find your own enjoyment in it.
Still, don't think I had my heart completely in it. I'd just gotten rejected by a publisher in a video conference just moments before. They said the title and constructed language was too unpronounceable. Philistines!
The man child Harold showing up with The Kid...icing on the top of a giant turd cake that had been steadily baking since 2 A.M. that morning.
The little boy's name: Mel Nesbit. I took a creative writing class with Terri, his mother, when her last name as still Weatherall, and he didn't even exist.
Beautiful woman. Red hair, petite, (ahem) elfin features. Although technically a music major, I found her writing for that single class we took together rather charming.
Full disclosure: She is the inspiration behind Ter'li'ana the elf princess. You know what they say - write what you know.
Mel, old enough for middle school, greatly resembled his mother, but unfortunately also resembled that Nesbit schmuck she'd married (God rest his soul).
Hope you can understand what it's like to see someone else steal away the love of your life and have a child with them, and the contempt you may possibly feel for that child.
In summary, not one hundred percent excited to see him, especially when he arrived with a person who seemed like Terri's replacement husband. Plus they interrupted my presentation, abysmally pathetic as it may have been.
First time my eyes had ever beheld Harold in the flesh. Clad in a gaudy purple tuxedo patterned like a Hawaiian shirt, and lacking the traditional bald baby-like appearance, he did not resemble his children's book character at all.
He brought with him a second demented adult: Portly, African American, garbed like a tourist - oversized Canadian NHL shirt, antlered baseball cap like something out of a National Lampoon movie. Heavy use of purple fabric.
Around this stranger's neck hung a purple pendant, a fascinating design bearing the image of a caribou. The more I stared at this amulet, the more my vision seemed to blur, and I swore I in fact stared at a bipedal creature with a furry body and a moose's head...also clad in a maple leaf T-shirt and pendant. I dismissed this as brain fog from lack of sleep.
I suppose it should have been obvious who stood before me, but my brain only presented these possible options, in this precise order: Transgender people. Fans of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Strange cosplay for the Joker from Batman. Star Sapphires from Green Lantern. Harold's book didn't even make the list.
Immediately the boy asked me to help locate the tuxedo wearing stranger's father.
My eyes searched the nearby shelves for the boy's mother. No sign of her anywhere. "And...who is this? Your new father?"
Mel grimaced. "No, this is my new friend Harold."
Boy was I ever relieved!
In addition to it being my job, I had hopes of impressing Terri, so I agreed to help. I led them to the computer at my desk (no 45 minute time limit). "By the way, where's your mother?"
Mel visibly cringed when I asked this. "She's at work."
"Don't you have school?"
"Yeah, but I...got permission for an extracurricular activity."
My mental B.S. detector went off, but 1. Terri never gave me permission to parent, and 2. She never gave me her number. I instead attempted to help Mel's friend locate his father.
Not a wealth of information. The simpleton didn't know anything. Harold had no surname, and his father...no name whatsoever.
The only names he had for his father were "Narrator" and "Old man."
"Old man is not a name. Unless he also told you he was going out Christmas shopping one year and never came back, but that kind of old man you most certainly can live without." Though I wouldn't mind if my Dad dropped by and got pelted by Mother's Hummel figurines for a change, I thought. "Neither is `Narrator.'"
I scowled at the empty Google search bar, rubbed my forehead. "I think your best bet would be using something like Ancestry and send them a genetic sample, have them look you up by your genetic profile."
When I mentioned the fees, the kid frowned. "I'll...haveto ask mom about that."
"I'd buy the subscription for you, but if other people here caught wind of it, everyone would be hitting me up for subscriptions."
"I understand," he sighed.
As the two left me, I heard Mel say to Harold, "Guess you might as well take me back to school...You think you can make me a purple Lamborghini?"
I have always been an imaginative and curious person, and the bizarre qualities of these...library guests had not escaped my attention. For this reason, I felt goosepimples worthy of Spider Man without realizing why. I rose from my desk, stalking them as they snuck off to the alleyway behind the building.
My jaw dropped as I watched the suited man use a big purple crayon to draw the outlines of an automobile...on thin air.
The moment he added the finishing touches...boom. There stood a purple sports car, and not just a regular Lamborghini, either. He'd made it look like the Batmobile.
I stood watching, flabbergasted, as the vehicle sped down the street.
"Harold and the F'pk'rrn crayon!" I cried, rushing back into the building.
I snatched every installment of Harold and the Purple Crayon I could from the shelves, reading them cover to cover (elapsed time: five minutes), ordered the rest via interlibrary loan. I imagine my coworkers thought I'd just suffered a stroke.
These preliminary investigations would soon lead me to even more astonishing things, culminating in my very real journey into the pages of Glaive of G'Gaur'u.
Speaking of which, let's return to the semi - present.
A few swigs from my flask, and a brief rest, and I felt ready to hike again.
I got up, drew my Glaive, my magical sword, gazing at the eye on its hilt as I spoke the Incantation of Guidance.
The eye narrowed into the shape of a compass needle, pointing true north. I marched.
I suppose all fantasy books are part story and part childhood memory. The forest, the crisp smells, the nature sounds, it all reminded me of pleasant, peaceful times in Summer Camp as a child. An idyllic stroll, the miles not so bad if one takes them slow.
Still, I had a very wearying day. The usual lack of sleep, coupled with an intense magical war with Harold, it took its toll. Furthermore, despite it being bright early morning in G'Gaur'u, I'd left the earthly realm at night. My body clock said it had to be damn near midnight or later.
Succumbing to fatigue, I located a soft spot on the grass and curled up for a brief nap.
Hadn't slept that well in months. No old woman haranguing me at dawn with her nonsense...I almost didn't wake when I heard the screams.
"Unhand us, you monsters!" A young, feminine voice. "We don't belong to you!"
"You belong to us now," a gravelly voice snarled back.
"Where are you taking us?"
My eyes flew open. "Bella?"
I rolled on my stomach, scuttling behind nearby foliage to observe...whatever this was.
A small army of beast men, hairy creatures with heads of wolves, foxes and bulls, each hefting indecently clad women over their shoulders. Being anatomically correct, these monsters all wore short leather wrestler outfits, like He-Man characters.
They also had grizzly bear men with weapons to guard the transport, armed with spiked clubs, maces, threatening looking bullwhips, and blades.
The women squirmed to escape, but they had their wrists shackled together, ankles manacled.
One of these captives included an elven version of Bella, my coworker, clad in a shiny leather bikini and one of those studded collars she always wore, brilliant green hair cropped in Bob style.
A minotaur carried a grubby faced little girl, clad in boy's peasant clothes. The child howled and kicked wildly, clawed and bit the beast, but he didn't react.
The wolf man holding Bella gave her a nasty sneer. "We take you to Baba Yaga! Baba Yaga want you for dinner!"
"No!"
"Baba Yaga?" whimpered a freckly, long haired blonde captive in a two piece slave costume. Not an elf. "Who's that?"
"Silence!" the fox man holding her barked.
"You're better off not knowing, Sm'g't Tremi." Bella fidgeted with her restraints, but the wolf man just smacked her in the face and growled.
Sm'g't wept as she tried inchworming out of the fox man's arms. "Please let us go! We'll do anything you ask!" She made her voice husky. "...Anything!"
The fox man licked his chops, but merely answered, "Sorry. No can do. Baba Yaga promise no destroy village if M'ng'schaa bring woman for Baba Yaga."
"Sorry, we have other plans!" Bella brought the chains of her cuffed wrists down around the neck of the wolf man and pulled back.
For a few moments, the two struggled, the young woman trying to keep the chain tight, the wolf pawing at her arms and gripping the chain.
The monster dislodged the chain from his neck, hurling Bella to the ground.
Then the beating began.
"K'rnt'r'gie! No!" Sm'g't shouted. "Please, will someone help us? Anyone?"
Nobody answered her. The monster continued beating K'rnt'r'gie.
In tears, Sm'g't wailed, "Oh, if only there were a brave hero, lurking behind these trees with a magic sword...or other magical weapon!"
I rose from my hiding spot, drawing the Glaive.
I charged, weapon raised in defiance. "Yaaah!"
The Glaive is sort of a cross between Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer, The Eye of Thundara, and Sting from The Hobbit. Once the blade is drawn in battle, it takes on a life of its own, hacking limbs from bodies. Severed furry heads, arms and legs, blood and bones, flew everywhere. "The Vorpal Blade went snicker snack!" I joked.
Alarmed by the sudden attack, the wolf man threw K'rnt'r'gie back over his shoulder, turning to run. Sm'g't's captor had the same idea.
"Hero, free me and I shall be thy slave!" Sm'g't called. "I shall serve you in any capacity you desire!" Then, in a breathy tone, "And I mean any!"
I gulped. "Yes ma'am!"
"The same goes for me!" K'rnt'r'gie agreed. "I shall also be thy slave, and mostly do what thou ask of me...within reason!"
"I...suppose that's fair..."
Note: Nobody there spoke English, but rather the constructed language of G'Gaur'u, which you can download in PDF form from Garynatwickggauru dot com for a $3 surcharge (Publishers expect you to cater to the lowest common denominator, so I have stripped my story down to a language anyone of less than average intelligence can decipher).
Since K'rnt'r'gie had a feisty fighting spirit, and resembled Bella, I rushed after her first. I separated the wolf man's torso from the lower half of his body, smashed the woman's chains to give her liberty of movement.
I attempted to release her friend Sm'g't as well, but at this precise moment, a grizzly bear man came at me with an axe. After I diced him to bloody pieces, I discovered K'rnt'r'gie had already taken the wolf man's sword and run M'ng'schaa the fox man through with it.
I frowned in disappointment as she smashed her friend's chains. "Well, one slave is better than—"
I flinched as the little girl shrieked. The minotaur had capitalized on our distraction by retreating further into the woods, presumably toward the home of Baba Yaga. He growled something to the other beast men, inspiring them all to rush off in different cardinal directions, disappearing into the foliage with their female captives.
"N'zat'dith!" K'rnt'r'gie hefted her sword from hand to hand, casting me an expectant look. "We've got to save my tribe sister!"
I chased the minotaur carrying the girl, and actually caught up with her, but when I took a swing at him with my Glaive, he held up his prisoner like a shield. The moment I lowered my blade to snatch the child away from him, a bear man jumped out from behind a tree, lunging with his mace.
I separated his mace wielding hand, and his giant head from his body, but lost track of the minotaur with the child.
K'rnt'r'gie rushed up beside me. "Where'd they take N'zat'dith?"
I shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me."
She cast Sm'g't a desperate glance. "Did you see where they took N'zat'dith?"
Sm'g't only shook her head.
For a moment, we all stood staring into the forest, at a loss.
"It's a minotaur," said K'rnt'r'gie. "We can just follow its hoofprints."
I smacked myself in the face, thinking that should have been my line. What was wrong with me? Why was I suddenly playing the village idiot in my own story?
We searched the ground for a moment, and, with little difficulty, located an obvious set of bull tracks.
We followed them.
"So...K'rnt'r'gie..." I said. "When volunteering to be my slave, what exactly did you mean by within reason?"
The young woman answered like someone going for a job interview. "I will cook and clean and fix thine armor and weapons. Very good with armor and weapons, not so much with the first part. Also an excellent lute player, can procure a variety of medicines, perform light secretary duties, but you must not get confused and think me your romantic slave. I will not perform those kinds of duties...Unless you merely wish to have a listening ear. I do enjoy a good conversation from time to time."
"Oh," I sighed, turning to her blonde, less decently attired friend. "Sm'g't. Still up for being my slave?"
She shook her head. "I now belong to K'rnt'r'gie. Thank you for freeing her."
"Great." I cleared my throat. "Where are you from?"
"Both I and K'rnt'r'gieare from Rly'gruh'ha."
"Now why is that familiar...?" I repeated the name to myself as we hiked.
Suddenly it struck me. "Right! Now I remember! Sm'g't Tremi! The flat character I never fleshed out!" I scratched my head. "Sm'g't, tell me more about yourself. It'd make the writing job so much easier. How did you get to know K'rnt'r'gie? What were you doing when you got captured? What kind of skills do you have? What's your function in your tribe—?"
She abruptly exploded in a mess of purple goo.
K'rnt'r'gie didn't react.
At all.
"I...take it you two weren't close."
She only gave me a blank stare. "Two?"
"Yes," I groaned. "Two. I rescued you from a wolf man, and you rescued a blonde girl named Sm'g't Tremi from a fox man."
K'rnt'r'gie gave me the same exact look the police officers gave mother when she told them about me throwing away food and going to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. "I don't know what you're talking about. You only rescued me."
"She no longer exists!" I muttered to myself. "All right, what about the little girl? You still remember her?"
"Why would I forget that?"
I shook my head in disbelief. "I...don't know."
"We need to keep moving." she pointed to my belt. "Do you have an empty flask?"
"Sure."
I handed her one, and she scooped the purple ooze into it. Her hands glowed briefly in contact with the substance, but at the moment, I didn't understand what she meddled with.
"What is that stuff?"
"I don't know, but the substance contains great power."
"I suppose there's some internal symbolic logic to all this." Wrinkling my brow, I continued after the trail of hoofprints.
K'rnt'r'gie rubbed her ankles the best she could with the iron cuffs still on. "These are so uncomfortable, and the chains make too much noise. I'd ask you to break them now, but in our haste, I fear losing a limb. When we have more time, I would appreciate it if you'd help me remove them."
Personally, I thought them a good look, well, minus the chains. In fact, Bella often came to work with studded wristbands. "Of course. I'll see what I can do...By the way, I'm sorry those monsters beat you like that. The abuse you experienced...It looked very painful."
"Oh?" For a moment, K'rnt'r'gie seemed mystified by the comment, but then..."Pain has its place. If you enjoy the company of the one administering it, it is not pain. That being said, I did not enjoy the company."
I raised an eyebrow. "I...see."
We lost the trail at a small stream, but K'rnt'r'gie had a good eye, catching a partial print on the opposite side. A few miles down, we arrived at the Baba Yaga's hovel.
Ramshackle A-Frame log cabin, decorated all around with human and animal bones, hundreds of voodoo dolls and effigies dangling from trees surrounding the building. The whole place reeked of decaying bodies and rotten food, flies swarming everywhere.
I didn't know we'd stumbled into a trap until we stepped in a pile of leaves and a rope net closed around us.
Up we shot into the air, smashed together like rabbits in a sack.
Not a great situation, but, on the positive side, K'rnt'r'gie's body pressed right up against mine. I gazed into her green eyes, enjoying the touch and her warm breath.
She grimaced in disgust. "Could you cut the rope, please? I dropped my sword."
I carefully drew my Glaive, sawing at the ropes holding the net together, but the ropes glowed with enchantments, so it proved to be as difficult as cutting steel cable with a rusty hacksaw. Possible, but very slow going.
I only got a few of them severed before a hooded figure came shuffling out with a pair of hairy bodyguards.
The stranger raised a magic staff in the air, and with a magic spell rendered both I and K'rnt'r'gie unconscious.
My brain dully registered the sensation of my body hitting the ground, and being dragged somewhere.
I awoke, chained to a wall, upside down by my feet.
Although challenging to understand my surroundings from this vantage point, I got the basic gist:
A large, primitive kitchen space, lined with prison cells containing scantily clad female prisoners...and one little girl in peasant clothes. K'rnt'r'gie hung smirking beside me, also upside down.
N'zat'dith, the little girl, had been stuck inside what basically amounted to a dog kennel, hung by a chain from the ceiling.
Untidy place. Rotting food, bones and the remains of various creatures scattered all about a boiling cauldron and crude wooden tables. Rats the size of chihuahuas scampered through the debris, gnawing on things. A prisoner shrieked when one entered her cell. To one side of the room, a rough living area, a straw bed and racks of...stuff in jars, plants, pickled organs, worms and bugs, probably for potions and whatnot.
The air...thick with flies. Rotting smells...and...the smell of burning coffee.
The robed stranger approached me, throwing back her hood.
A fat, warty frog face glared at me. One yellow eye, one squinty white one that appeared to be made of glass. The face reminded me of ET when they put him in a wig and a dress.
"Lazy, no good prince! Trying to steal my food away from me, food I worked so hard to procure!" She then lost her train of thought, rambling about eyes of newt and dragons on a nearby volcano.
I gaped at her. "Mother?"
The old crone didn't react.
"That's it," I muttered to myself. "I'm in hell!" Then, in a scream, "Harold! You'll pay for this!"
N'zat'dith pressed her face to the bars of her cage. "Dad?"
I stared. "What?"
The unwashed face brightened considerably. "Oh Daddy! I knew you'd come to rescue me!"
I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean, Daddy?"