3.14 Showdown

An hour dragged by. Silven grew heavy in the professor’s weedy arms. Finally, when Grennel could bear the unpleasant load no longer, he spied a way out. To defeat the powers of the Radiant King, he would need to stoop lower. Slowly, carefully, he slid the Fulcrum down into the chair on the grass verge. The sly and slender man on the other side asked for the wager. Grennel pulled some ichory thing from Silven’s pocket as compensation. Silven stirred. “Are we there now?” he droned. “Cragtop?”And then, the man dealt the cards.

*   *   *

“Your Majesty? Your Majesty?” said someone in his ear. Silven tore a reluctant eye from the Dwarven Annihilator in his hand, and though he looked up at a familiar face, the choice of Mystic Armour or Frosty Touch as its augment still gnawed at his mind. It was morning again. How odd.

“You’ve been playing all night, Your Majesty,” Grennel said gently. “Is it time for Cragtop?”

“Nah!” slurred Silven like a drunkard. “The world can save its stupid self.” He waved an arm clumsily across the playing field. “There’s Spelldeck to play!” The evil powers of Melton were ebbing away.

“Do you know who you are?” Grennel quizzed as he drew closer.

“Yeah, man! Champion of the dragonslayin’ Cobble Road!” he drawled. He jabbed a flap of card up at his companion. “I got a Merwarrior of Bluebay at the end. Look! Look!”

“I see it,” replied Grennel sternly. “But what about other champions? This sorry state here must be in the gutter of the Spelldeck world.”

“Oi!” protested the man. Then, he looked down sadly. “Tis true.”

“Don’t you want to build your deck? The taverns are where all the action is at. You might get a shiny there.”

“I’ve told you, all the helping and governing is boring,” Silven began. “But here, the intricacies of the tiers, the agony of the augments, the genius it takes to find the balance, the pride when it’s all timed to perfection and the coin rolls my way.... you’ll know nothing like it, my friend.” He rose suddenly. “Did you say shiny?”

Grennel nodded. He glanced at the dealer. “Don’t just stare... where’s the nearest tavern? We have real champions to challenge!”

The man looked over his coin pouch and nodded up the road glumly. “Three Toes. Sneaky Pete. Watch out, he plays a mean green deck.”

Silven thanked him for his advice and trotted on, professor in tow.

As they reached a sharp bend some way up the path, Silven stooped low and grimaced. “Eurgh! Shit.”

Grennel plodded up by his side and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. “So you’ve finally come round?”

Silven gazed out at the thinning trees and sighed. “Yeah. I’d thank you if I was thankful, but I’d started to hope it had all been a bad dream.” He wiped a hand across his mouth like he was going to be sick. “We can’t play games forever.” He looked up suddenly at that, met Grennel’s eyes, and smiled gently. Perhaps that was a little too close to the truth. Grennel began to speak, and cut short. If all was going well, the few remaining witnesses would be accompanying them right now. He returned the smile instead.

Silently, they rounded the curve. Behind the last stand of pines, there was a tavern.

Every nerve of Silven’s body sparked and rebelled. I’m here, they said. He made himself walk on. There was no last saving grace, no map mix-up or cheap bandit trap here. The sign by the whitewashed wall read Three Toes. The travellers exchanged a glance. Though the sun was rising, a deep chill was seeping into their bones. Silven fingered the charge stick and hoped it wouldn’t hurt too bad.

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“Riddle me ree!” squeaked an annoying voice from the side. Silven looked down. There was a frog sitting on a tree stump on the edge of the neat lawn surrounding the tavern. Behind it, a gleaming sword rose from the rotting wood. The frog looked up attentively and blubbered on. “Mighty foes ye both now seek, and I hold the power to prove them weak. To put upon your enemies a muzzle, thou must solve this devilish puzzle.”

Before the frog could go on, Silven strode up and proposed a puzzle of his own. “That may be... but watch this and see... how could you stop me?” He reached over the little creature and plucked the sword from its pedestal. He marched on and tuned out the frantic protests.

“That was terrible,” lectured Grennel. He spread his arms and proclaimed, “But you’re just a frog... not a big scary dog... what’s missing from your log?”

Silven suddenly looked serious as he inspected his loot. “This may be pretty useful actually. I might need to hit it to get it to die.”

“You didn’t bring a weapon to the final showdown?” cried Grennel incredulously.

Silven shrugged. “I forget things sometimes. What of it? Usually I have competent people to remember for me.” But then they reached the door, and the time for mirth was over.

Grennel pressed an ear to the threshold. “Nothing,” he whispered. “I’m afraid we may cause quite the spectacle.”

“A better view for our patrons,” hissed Silven in reply. “Good.” He composed himself for a moment and swung open the door to face his destiny.

Instead, he faced a bustling beamed parlour awash with men and alcohol and alcohol-men hybrids. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth across the way. Through the tiny square windows in the far wall, the pitch black of night stared in. Silven and Grennel halted just in time to avoid a wayward tankard. “Huh?” managed Silven.

“Set piece,” murmured Grennel sideways from the corner of his mouth. Something like a mouse scurried underneath a table and out under the bar. “Dramatic lighting.”

Silven backtracked and stuck his head out into sunlight. “Huh,” he said again, brightly. He swung back and forth across the threshold. “Daytime! Night-time! Daytime! Night-time! Like it!” Then he saw Grennel’s face and tried to remember the need for ichor research. He chose night-time and advanced through the parlour.

He knew the owner of the voice when he saw him. He was dressed in plain cloak and boots like the rest, but the pointy wizard’s hat, short beard and effort to have a vaguely interesting face did distinguish him somewhat. At that moment, the voice-haverer was staring sullenly at his goblet and drumming his fingers on the little table at which he reclined. Silven felt a strange pang of sympathy as he took a wide berth around the figure. He had made him wait quite a long time after all.

Even now, it was not to be his day. Nor would it ever be. The voice on the air had promised a lead into a ghastly web of turmoil and trials leading to victory over the dark. Silven was going straight for that last bit this time.

From somewhere, Silven vaguely remembered a description of this cheery alehouse. He passed alongside the bar, noted the doorway open to the glowing spit roasts of the kitchens, and moved on between the wobbling revellers. That was not the way. Somehow, he knew it was the closed door in the far corner. There, the wall jutted out in a large square, dividing off a sizeable chunk of the hall. The guest room. That’s where he would end it.

Slowly, he traced his path to the corner, where the room met the bar. Painfully, he bent over. Reluctantly, he handed the charge stick over to his sidekick. “Now, if you would just - yoooooow!”

It was like that time he had received a bothersome crossbow bolt between the eyes, only a little worse. The pain sent him scurrying forward at a horrifying speed. The patrons had only just began to turn their heads in disgust by the time he opened his eyes into darkness. He was in.

Beyond his vision, something huge heaved and shuddered. He didn’t like it.

Desperately, he shrank back and crashed against the inner wall, fumbling for a candle, a lantern, anything to fend off that abysmal nothingness. Instead, he found the door handle and pushed down.

Unmovable appears to be a very one-sided perspective of things. From this perspective, all was well. Light pooled into the first third of the guest room. In a second, Professor Grennel came waltzing in. “Did you find it? Is it done?” He stopped talking when he saw the expression on Silven’s face. He was watching the light as it swished into the darkness and swashed back like a tide. Beyond, the room was still utterly black. Dread clutched their hearts triumphantly.

“It... it can’t stop this,” stuttered Grennel. He delved into a pocket and took out a match and torch. He lit it. The darkness receded.

It revealed a black shape in the centre of the bare floorboards. It was huge. It had spikes, and claws, and jaws, and tentacles, and every unpleasant and deadly appendage you could possibly imagine.

It also had a pair of open eyes.

“Buggerlumps,” said Silven.