The other side of the world . . .
Argentia La’febre was bored. Living for a few thousand years is great but the simple fact is, it’s not really living when you’re undead. The tale spun around the communal blood bowl sounded so glorious, illustrious, just out of reach of where children ghost stories tried to take you. Eternal life, no pain, not having to worry about gods in control of your fate when even Death spits you back out. The biggest crime of all is what they didn’t tell her, that little detail that makes all the difference.
What they didn’t tell her is that the undead don’t have sex either, and by all the powers that be did she miss sex. It was more out of nostalgia that she took the time to keep her form young-ish, looking relatively new through advanced necromancy and body stealing rituals, but it was still dead. And then just to shove the stake in a bit more, that evil little twist in the heart, the Lords of Bones and Shadows stuck her on this godforsaken mudball for the laziest of reasons.
Standing on the precipice of an enormous ice castle, Argentia looked out over what the previous occupants called, “Antarctica”. A beautiful but abandoned deathtrap where nothing remotely humanoid lived. Empty. Vast. Endless miles of ice, windswept and lonely, were most of what she could see. The ocean glimmered at the edge of the horizon, the various Auroras crackling every twelve hours or so, allowing her to play.
Using her Grand Mirror as a troop dispensary, she entertained herself by sending small packs of Hungry Ones randomly into the world, watching for as long as the Aurora held out. They never lasted long, especially without the constant cloud cover to block the infernal sun, but at least she got to watch some blood fly. It was only by chance that her portal today chanced upon a strange mana surge near the prime base in the North. Fortune held her hand, keeping her from a true unmaking as the inner blackness of the Mirror Realm kept an strange explosive from entering through her one-way portal. A bit oblong and around the size of three human skulls squished together, the red and green runes exploded, completely destroying the contained tunnel of the Mirror Realm.
When you get to be this old, it takes a lot to scare you, but this was a bit more, it was, unsettling.
Black bones taken from dragons’ thighs formed the side of the Grand Mirror’s frame while well-aged arch wizard sternums pressed to make a cohesive whole formed the top and bottom. After containing the blast, even the dragon bone was cracked up the side and little flickers of green fire licked at the top-right corner and just wouldn’t go out. She had been ordered to only use the mirror for scrying, but even the Grand Lichs understand boredom . . . she hoped.
*******
Merlin
Stupid boy. Maybe, not really. He didn’t know. Wytchfire had been outlawed in certain kinds of conflicts. And using someone elses’ wytchfire? What a list of damning charges that would be. The damn flames just don’t go out until there’s nothing left to burn.
Not to mention, Earth was still up for grabs and too many bored Players were angling for it, which meant the risk factor was just too damn high. Can’t have anybody else figuring out there’s another sorcerer on the loose, especially one of my blood and that kind power. Damn genetics. Damn sowing my wild oats. Letting this get out would be akin to dumping chum in the midst of a pack of starving krakens.
The witches will want him.
The undead are always recruiting . . . or hungry.
The Centauri unknowingly yet willingly pissed away their avenues to that kind of power. As if elevated levels of power were something to be spurned.
And Mystics above, the freaking Council will have a fit if they find any more of my unaccounted for offspring. Zeus damn it.
Time stood still for an eternity, Merlin’s subjective eternity, as he gazed upon the sleeping figure of his distant descendant. To be that young again. To be that full of untethered potential. Free of obligations. What a waste.
“Too strong, too ignorant, and way too out in the open.” With a grunt and a wave of his hand, Merlin’s controlled wave of Chaos cut through the dimensional skin washing over the sorcerer, each bit of gear falling off and unmaking itself before folding into small disks. Each one bore Merlin’s mark as if he had stamped it himself. Wild Majik tore a spatial vortex into the timestream, carefully suturing two points of the Eternal River together forming a temporary helix loop. In doing so, Merlin removed two obstacles to his plan and paved the way for his very-removed-descendant to fix it for him.
Chuckling with a sense of evil glee, the welling up of restrained mischief that hadn’t been indulged in far too long, Merlin shrugged before sealing the two floating vortexes that pulled the present world in two. “At least I redirected the bomb before it went to where it was going to go. Hehehehe, overeager fools. Earth is mine.”
An excerpt from the latest entry in Merlin’s Memoirs
******
Watching Earth grow up without me or mine was an exercise in patience . . . extreme patience. I’m older than most of Earth’s preserved memories. Countless idiotic wars, people falling for politicians’ lies over and over be they kings, priests, presidents or councils. They didn’t really seem to learn, and it wasn’t really their fault. The only way available to them to actually cut through the wall that they call the ‘bullshit’, was to have a unified rebellion of arms to take over.
History always repeats itself in every single endeavor. The tale is as old as Time itself and somehow never boring. One man raising himself up from the dirt through strength and killing the bloodsucking rulers and placing himself on the throne didn’t exist on its own merits. That man needed an army, and then he needed the consent of the governed, and the list of idiocies simply continues. The only variations where the view becomes interesting is when the very elements of reality are different: Mana, magic, chi, sorcery, magitech, divinities, the very nature of power was divergent outside the Seal. So many avenues to godhood and my descendant was squandering it!
Again, not his fault. He thought I was a gods-be-blessed (or damned) legend, a fairy tale in which lessons could be learned. How could they know, especially with their intentionally shortened lifespans? Widespread genetic tampering was being largely corrected by the Centauri or by the simple nature of being inundated by magic. Amusingly enough, it was the Aelven and Dwarven slavers fixing the issue in the most efficient way that pointed out the Centauri’s greatest error. What's the point of your workforce dying after thirty, maybe forty productive years, and what good are they if they can’t use magic? Magic is too useful to prevent workers from having it, and the potential for Sorceries keeps Hope alive.
I do pride myself on threatening their ruling class, just putting enough fear into them to put a limit on a hundred years of slavery. Once that’s over the freedmen would have a set of skills, be learned in the general mystic/multiverse culture, and be a part of a thriving community. It serves as an acceptable funnel from the lower societies to acclimate to higher order civilization. Magic does come with its own societal puberty. Not the best outcome for the masses but it’s better than the other most likely alternative, death by invading Hungry Ones or Hive.
They won’t see it that way but who cares?
I’m still technically king, especially since I won it from my idiot cousin, Artheur.
As I sat and considered the wall of ice in front of me, I gazed upon the crucible for the fledgling sorcerer. Oddly enough, the mere whimsy of having an ice castle as a home is turning out to be quite useful. I shamelessly stole the idea from the base humans' imaginings, their drawings of an alien who was almost a god, the one they called ‘Superman’. Fortress of Solitude, it has a nice ring. Of course mine is different, Fortress of Power! Better fits the reality of the situation. Regardless of my idle musings and wanton expressions of power, I should probably explain to the runt what’s actually in store. Timeline dispersions and re-unifications are a bit tricky.
Besides, he could use a playmate.
*********
Very Freaking Far Away
Ben
I’d love to get a glimpse of whatever fucking truck hit me outta nowhere. For once my Flesh Sorcery didn’t automatically kick in and heal whatever drug-enhanced jackhammer was pounding away at the inside of my skull. Worse, my freaking rune schema was gone from my skin. Even though it looked like I was butt-naked in a rainforest, a chill ran through me. Every tree radiated hostility and it probably had something to do with the off-color, the purplish tinge that lent a faded, alien look to the forest.
Sitting cross legged twenty feet in front of me was definitely not something anyone would expect to see in a freaking jungle, a calm, fresh corpse. From what I could see though, there wasn’t really evidence of a cause of death, but a waxy dead body of a redhead with closed eyes and a peaceful demeanor sitting back against a twisted tree. As it hadn’t moved a hair, and I’m really wary of dead bodies since ‘dead’ is now a loose term, I kept my eyes on it and slowly shook out each muscle.
After confirming no injuries, I did the same thing with my soul as something felt off. Fuck, everything felt weak. Having good control of your magic is like being well practiced with a gun, you have expectations for how much it weighs both loaded and unloaded, you understand every part of it and how it operates, the consequences of using it as well as leaving it out there for anyone to pick up. Right now, my soul did not feel like my favorite gun, it felt like someone had welded the safety in the safe position, removed the bolt and bolt carrier, and given me the shell of what was rightfully mine.
“Don’t start hyperventilating!”
Muscular Santa, i.e. Merlin, stepped into my field of vision from a shadow behind the dead body. “Just relax for a minute, had to stop you from starting an even worse war than what humanity is already embroiled in. Didn’t the hag tell you that wytchfire is a violation of the Accords?”
My furious glare told him no. The big guy chuffed with amusement. He fucking laughed. I wanted to kill him. The urge passed all too quickly as Merlin waved his hand and a bit of sparkly magic hit me.
“All right, all right, well, at least I saved your life and a few possible futures for Earth.” Merlin said, pulling a massive stein out of nowhere and downing the frothy ale with gusto. “And I need you to listen to me with your head not your temper. Now, your sorceries are just a step out of phase with you at the moment so we can have a civil conversation, though you aren’t stupid enough to fight me, which is fine.”
My glare continued as my negative emotions began to make themselves known again. My usual Flesh Sorcery enhanced control wasn’t at my disposal. “Or close enough to civil,” Merlin grunted, tossing the stein into the air where it vanished as if it were never there to begin with. Casually lighting a cigar while pulling out a flask from his voluminous cloak, Santa’s jacked cousin kept right on as if I weren’t even there. “So, where should we start? Ah yes, the situation back on Earth.” Merlin let out a massive sneeze and what should have been a disgusting spray of snot was a blast of wind that formed into a cloud of steam that stuck to a nearby tree, morphing into a large mirror of pure, reflective ice.
“It’s probably easier to show you since you may not believe me. Now, what do you remember about your last conversation with an Elevated One, the Mighty Messenger? You know, the One whose gift you still haven’t taken advantage of? The One whose warning you haven’t heeded?!!”
“Herm-”
“DON’T say the Name!”
My mouth snapped shut. Merlin was referring to Hermes, the one who had given me a couple warnings as well as a consolidated knowledge orb containing the instructions on how to make my own grimoire. The meddling deity also warned me against making too big of a splash on the global scene, which means this meeting is probably about me fucking that up.
Great.
Pivoting on my butt and doing a bit of scooting, I put myself in a better spot, a bit further away from the dead body. I didn’t trust it. I’ve learned that dead doesn’t necessarily mean ‘done’. Once I’d gotten further away from the creepy trees and a tiny bit closer to Merlin, I kept one eye on the dead body but gave him the rest of my attention. Merlin might be the scariest thing here but the fact stands that he ‘rescued’ me which means that he’s invested in keeping me alive, for now. Taking a few deep breaths to center myself and rein in the itching tide of anger, I pushed for my Earth Sorcery to shape the dirt into a chair. A few clumps roll underneath my butt and a slight cushion forms, a far cry from the beautiful stone chair I envisioned.
“Out of phase, young sorcerer. Your powers won’t be in-phase, they won’t be of use to you until I purge the untethered Chaos wrapped around your soul-tree, a very inspiring envisioning if I do say so myself. Very, hmmm, utilitarian.” Scowling wasn’t helping me do anything but it did make me feel a teeny bit better. Defiance always lifts the mood. “Where was I, ah, yes! Showing you what you’ve missed.”
The fog covering the mirror cleared, panning out to an aerial view high enough to catch the sight of my five thousand strong army of sunstone golems marching out of the misty portal area of the Yggdrasil-alder thicket. The elemental sergeant led the way with spear-form Gungir sticking out of its back, Kraken obviously directing the army to begin the long march towards the ice castle almost a thousand miles away. Acantha, Reeanth, and Versonae stayed with the beach fortification guarded by the fifty golem contingent, waiting for the incoming horde of Hungry Ones being led around by the wily Spot.
My big army skirted the vanguard of the Hungry ones, immediately heading west from the alder thicket Yggdrasil portal and then bypassing detection by cutting through a narrow valley. I watched in fast forward as Spot skillfully herded the slavering horde as if they were idiot sheep, dancing just in and out of range and then charging in the direction he wanted them to go. He didn’t forget my instructions. Using every trick in the book, Spot bought both my team and the golem army just over half a week. It allowed the tireless golem army heading north to travel night and day to reach the ice castle in just six days.
My team stood with steel in their spines, constantly checking their weapons and their links to the main power supply. It wasn’t long before the innumerable undead crashed into the implacable phalanx of fifty sunstone golems with their long axes, hammers, and built-in cannons. They easily held back the force who were funneled through open channels built out of high walls grown from the bedrock.
The humongous pylon tirelessly fed the beach protection force, providing each of them as much mana as they could handle while they fought as a team, perfectly engaging for maximum effect and kiting away. The fifty golem phalanx acted as the anvil to my team’s hammer. Kraken’s army launched a bombardment of crystal mortars that would have put any modern Earth military to shame, almost leveling the Hungry Ones’ castle in under five minutes.
In the far north, my army of five thousand sunstone golems were incredible to watch as they dominated the battlefield. They were all in coordination with Kraken masterfully minding the elemental sergeants, combining tactics from medieval and trench warfare. The golems used berms and trenches to their benefit, digging in to avoid artillery while also lobbing grenades the same way longbow archers would fill the sky with arrows. I watched with bated breath as two undead dragons reared their heads out of the castle to unleash hellfire were cut down by a laser from Gungnir. I’d put money down that that blast was infused with energy from Gav’riel’s feather.
The scenes I watched in the mirror fast-forwarded again as my main army had to retreat due to lack of mana, the environment not containing enough sunlight or raw mana to sustain more than a few waves of attack. Ungainly behemoth undead, each the size of a Georgian mansion, tore themselves from rippling portals in the towering castle walls and chased my army back to the edge of the mountain range. Kraken used the sergeants to strategically place traps that slowed the enemy skirmishers down enough so that three out of the five thousand golems were able to escape back to the beachhead. The standard sunstone golems sacrificed themselves to preserve the commanding units of golems that were piloted by Earth Elementals. By the time Kraken returned, the group of undead that had chased Spot were already massacred and burning in massive pyres that glowed with an unholy green and red hue.
After a week without me, the main pylon had gathered enough mana to recharge the remainder of the army enough for a second assault. It was by sheer happenstance that they were ready to launch an offensive because this time the undead didn’t wait. The horde had come for revenge. I watched as Reeanth wielded Gungnir with an incredible display of skill, each sweep of the mace-form blew away entire knots of zombies while the spear-form lanced energy blasts that cut clear through all resistance. Acantha used the wands I gave her to devastating effect, setting up lanes of flaming walls that seemed to be solid and alive, funneling the unthinking horde into strategically placed traps. Versonae danced in and out of the golem phalanx with an inhuman grace, her blades flowing faster than a hurricane as she played the most offensive defense for the team, whipping back in to the castle to clear room around Acantha only to disappear and decapitate the spellcasters aiming for Reeanth or the pylon.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I was most proud of Spot though. The mirror should have shown more of his efforts but Merlin wanted to stay focused on my golem army. Although, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought a humongous fiery demon was charging through the undead horde, blue horns of solid flame adorned Spot’s broad skull and his bulk was far thicker than I’d ever seen. Bone armor covered in spines encrusted his shoulders, legs, head and reptilian tail, making him a terrifying meat grinder as he charged and tore through the battlefield. Even the zombie behemoths were like they were toy soldiers made from paper in his presence. Spot took on each behemoth by himself, tearing them to shreds and his howls spats flaming tornadoes that Acantha was only too happy to enhance and whip around.
As the battle turned, the golem army chased the undead back to the castle as they attempted a retreat. When they arrived at the foot of the castle, they were greeted by yet another horde of mutated undead. For a split second, there was a dark silhouette of a small zombie wizard at the top of the castle whose skull-tipped staff was draining the Aurora Borealis for something, but Spot took the cackling evil midget out with a giant leap and fiery bark.
I yelled out. “Oh yeah! That’s my boy! Did you see that?” I turned to Merlin, pointing at the unfolding pandemonium.
“Uhh yuck, I do so despise gnome lichs.” Merlin growled, his beard crackling with miniature bolts of purple lightning. “Bastards grow slow but don’t seem to have a cap on their power. They hide out for a few thousand years and emerge thinking they’re the rulers of the universe.” He leaned back, quaffing more liquor from his flask. “The really smart ones, and I mean the megalomaniac OCD ones, those creeps conquer a small world and use that as a hiding place for a hundred thousand years, feeding on souls and mana fonts.”
I shuddered, not wanting to think about Merlin casually dropping information about creatures that scared him. We turned back to watch the events unfolding in the scrying mirror.
With Kraken’s assistance and direction, Reeanth used water magic by proxy of Gungnir to bring the remnants of the ice castle to the ground, melting it back to the glacier from whence it sprang. A massive, skinny spire was erected, topped with a very pointy tip of conjured crystal whose one purpose was to disperse the nearby Aurora Borealis energy if it started to condense into anything resembling a portal.
“Nice, cover your bases,” I commented. “Make sure this shit doesn’t happen again. Close the door and seal the bitch behind you.”
The ice mirror zoomed out of Greenland and then zoomed into New Richmond as I turned to Merlin. “Hold up a second, gnome necromancers? Are those worse than goblin necromancers?”
“Absolutely,” Merlin confirmed. “The goblin or hobgoblin necromancers tend not to go the full length of lich transforming that gnomes do. Gnomes are hyper-focused on their goals, ALWAYS. They are the best at whatever they set their minds to, which also means that they’re the scariest enemy to ever have. Think about it, liches are immortal. Which means that gnome liches have eternity to perfect their craft, and that leads to evil and chaos on a scale you’ll rarely ever see.”
“Fuck, at least Spot took that one out.”
“Agreed.”
Merlin and I watched as New Richmond started to grow. The kids palling around with their wands and the small earth elementals following their lead while the lady wizards humored them, helping the children set up a magical version of a modern town. They even took the time to create a massive playground for the children. Mark, Scott and the other Glyph Blades carved out a shooting range and a practice area for training and Cassandra was splitting her time between the greenhouse projects and what looked to be an alchemical laboratory. The few teenagers of the growing town had started making their own mini-settlement just two miles away, a bit downstream. Their buildings were treehouses that hung over the water in magically altered mangrove trees, each complete with hammocks, stashes of food, and kayaks grown from birch trees that were lashed to the lowest branches.
“The mana fountains you’ve set up, both the hydro-electric converter and the sunstone mana converter, are being put to good use,” Merlin commented, waving his hand to move the scene a bit off to the West. “The Sun Aelves in the area have fallen head over heels for both Jamal’s tall, dark handsomeness and the abundant donations of mana, both of which contributed to a whole new batch of youngsters for them. Aelves tend to find it hard to get a child and now most of their women are pregnant!”
I let out a soft laugh, finding it hard to believe what I was hearing. “So dick won them some allies, huh? Wonder how much fun Jamal had, hehehe.” I rubbed my chin, staring at the almost ethereal beauty of the golden skinned Aelves. Sunlight seemed to play around their eyes and pointy ears, flashing as they smiled. Each of them, both men and women, sported slender builds and wavy daggers that almost looked to be more along the lines of jewelry than weaponry.
“Powerful allies. Their use of illusions, fire, and concentrated light beams make them incredibly dangerous foes. They are just as good at assassinations as their darker cousins.”
The mirror fogged over and I looked at Merlin, confusion and anger warring as I put questions together. “Technically, this time stream is different, so you have not missed any personal time. And I cannot tell you how much time exactly you’ve displaced over there. I estimate it to be what you would call a ‘month’. Earth is still harmonizing now that the Great Seal is broken but its full integration is far from over. Besides, there are far better uses of your time here.”
“That’s not really the point!” I argued, pointing at the cloudy mirror. “One base of the Hungry Ones is taken out but there’s one in the Antarctic as well!”
Merlin took a long pull from his flash and laughed. “You cannot believe that that’s your greatest foe right now? They’re not even a legitimate threat and won’t be for at least another hundred years!” He poked me in the head, knocking me on my butt. “Daemons in Europe, drakes in Asia, Beastmasters and Beastmen all over the place! Your world is being invaded by everyone, and the Hive is only barely being held off by your demented Centauri cousins one skein removed from Earth. You had a chance to be king of your area, the lord of the land, unite those under you and go a-conquering! That chance is gone now!”
“ I didn’t-”
“Think?! Of course you didn’t think!” Veins stood out on the massive predecessor of all sorcerers. Merlin took a moment to calm down, heavily sitting on a chair that apparated out of nowhere. Puffing on his cigar, he leveled his gaze at me. “At least, well, you didn’t really know. What you didn’t know is that I saved you from being placed on the main board well before you’d be ready. Using wytchfire is against the rules of the Accord. And practically all of it is composed of treaties and directives so intricately woven in such a way that I cannot tell you.”
Shushing me with an upraised finger, Merlin sighed. “I’m not actually upset with you as it’s not you that has vexed me. I realize how this must have looked to you but my recommendation would have been a much different course of action. You’ve been putzing around for almost a year now. What an absolute waste of time. My advice is this, ignore the undead for at least fifty years and get yourself situated. The colony south of your home would have been a perfect place to put down some roots, engage in some research, build your GODS-BE-DAMNED GRIMOIRE, and learn the basics of wizardry.”
Merlin leaned back in his chair, muttering just loud enough for me to hear. “Children. Wasting their youth, disregarding weapons and tools that Sages would sacrifice entire clans for. Useless. Painfully useless.”
I thought about it. I physically stopped and took the time to think about it.
Merlin’s got a point.
I used to be a reading fanatic, fantasy sci-fi was my shit, and one of the weird things that stuck in my head about magic users is that they were to be greatly respected or feared in three situations.
One, a prepared witch or wizard, one that has had time to scout out the enemy and prepare a plan, those fuckers can go toe to toe with elder beings. Two, a magic user with nothing to lose. That’s not where anyone wants to be. I usually tried to be the first one, plan, prep, prepare, in triplicate if I could. But it was the third situation that was the most dangerous for any enemy, and that would be taking on a wizard in his own home, because it basically combined reasons one and two but there was something about claiming the area. I felt that exact feeling the longer I spent near my glade. And it intensified the more I invested in what I considered my area. A home is claimed, entrenched and saturated with the mana, the essence of the wizard. Every bit of power in the area at his beck and call, every trap, snare, and pit ready for the snap of mental fingers.
I had halfway done that, but to be more honest, I half-assed it. Claiming an area takes time, it takes blood and sweat and tears, it requires a true investment. Actually putting your very self, your heart and soul into the work. The Lab, the Hole, the Grove, they were areas that I had lived in but they weren’t really home. Don’t get me wrong, they can be, but it’s simply not there yet. I hadn’t lived there for years. I wasn’t familiar with every inch of the place, hadn’t set up much in the way of preparations and or even sat down and figured out everything that I could do.
All in all, I’d say that I’m a pretty good sorcerer but definitely a shit wizard. And what makes this whole train of thought even worse is the issue really holding me back, my wife. I had been so obsessed with her safety, so angry that she’d been taken from me, so furious that I couldn’t do anything about it, so . . . helpless. I mean, what could I do, really? Someone with far more knowledge assured me she was safe, assured me that she’d probably outlive me in that damn trunk of Universe Tree. But if I spent my life looking back and planning everything around it, I’d never get anywhere let alone accomplish anything.
“Something struck a chord?”
“Yeah, first, fuck you.” Merlin’s smile faltered as I slowly and calmly got to my feet. “I’m nobody’s pawn, least of all some old dude who can carbon date dirt. Either send me back to Earth so I can kick some ass or give me a damn good reason as to why I shouldn’t? And before you answer, secondly, thank you. Thank you for saving my ass and helping me not commit the multiverse equivalent of war crimes against the Geneva convention. But whatever game you’re playing, I’m not a piece on that damn board.”
Merlin’s frown gave way to laughter as he smashed the ice mirror. “Good! One last test then for you to prove your spine!” Pointing at the dead redhead who was stinking ten feet away, Merlin snapped his fingers. “If you can kill that draugen-litch, you can keep her. She’ll teach you more wizardry than that damn school you sent your brother off to.”
“Better give me back my sorceries then . . .” I argued, not taking my eyes off the zombie, her milky eyes slowly opening as she bonelessly got to her feet. The dead muscle tissue began to swell before my very eyes.
“Nope!”
“A pointy stick perhaps?”
“Nope!”
“Are all old magic users fuckin’ crazy?!”
“Nope!”
Not wasting another second, I planted my foot, my toes gripping the soil and launched myself at the zombie, my enhanced body easily moving faster than the zombie could react. One palm strike to the chin to snap the head back followed by spearing my stiffened fingers through the decaying flesh of its brittle neck. I held back my revulsion, not allowing it to slow me as I grabbed the slimy bastard by the spine. Yanking it towards me, I pulled the head down as hard as I could, twisting the body to slam my knee directly into the top of its sternum. The opposing forces easily and completely ripped the head and neck clean off. Dropping it on the ground, I smashed the head to pulp and turned to Merlin, his eyes wide as I wiped my slimy hands off on the ground.
He looked at me unamused.
Glaring at him, I turned around and continued to beat the dead body, picking it up and smashing it into the nearest tree until the limbs flew off. Giving into my irritation that had already begun to blossom into rage, I punted the limbs even further into the alien vegetation.
“Now give them back!” I ordered, turning and glaring at Merlin even as I tried not to vomit. The zombie must have been the fresh kind of rotten because it fucking stank.
“Uhg,” my captor groaned. “Why do the babes yearn for their crutches?” Glaring at Merlin didn’t stop his oblivious condescension. “They’ll only make it harder to learn wizardry. Sorcery gets in the way of wizardry. You’ve had the easy path to power so far and you need to consolidate what you have. Sorcerers are always too one-sided, never learning outside their inclinations, and wizards tend to never reach their true breadth of power due to simple age. But you’re far ahead of the former and don’t have the concerns of the latter!”
I matched his groan with my own. I gagged as the stench of the smooshed undead finally made its way into my nose. Merlin raised one eyebrow and gestured at the dead body. A breeze of hued Chaos magic swept over it, breaking it down into a cloud of floating particles before depositing the remade corpse back up against the tree where it was just a few moments before.
“Jesus dude, why can’t I just go back home? I got a smoothie jungle and everything!”
“That’s not a name I’d recommend you take in vain.”
“That’s besides the point!” I yelled, pointing at the reconstituted undead body a few feet away from me. One yellowed eye focused on me as the flesh knit itself back together. The gray skin and discolored viscera flowed like wax until the corpse was whole again. “What do I have to do to avoid fucked up situations like this? Why do I have to fight a damn zombie in an alternate reality where my magic doesn’t work? Why do I have to worry about people like you and Flamel screwing with me? I just wanted the goddamn undead off my world so my tree of a woman wouldn’t get destroyed, that’s it! Fix me and put me back, please!”
He must have been sad, or lonely, or something, because his face fell as if he were actually hurt. As if I reached in and twisted his heartstrings, that’s how Merlin looked, rejected. From the outside looking in, it looked like I was berating Santa on his lazy weekend, with the chubby mountain man body smoking a cigar and sipping from a flask. “What?! Is an eternity of immortality and uncontained power so boring that you just have to do something, mess with something???”
“Yes!” He roared, spittle flying as he leapt to his feet, purple lightning crackling around his arms, snaking through his beard and his eyes. “By all the damn powers that be, YES! I can’t make a move without destroying a world over there, or sneeze without destabilizing a small reality over here! Every word passed between myself and a mortal is construed to be a message of war and unrest while every thought must be hidden ‘neath a cloud of deceptions!”
“Your problem!” I roared back. “Not mine! I didn’t kick this insanity off! I was fucking drunk when shit hit the fan! I’m lucky I survived!”
His sudden shift to a calm demeanor did more to scare me than his outburst. “Lucky, hrmmm. Maybe you were lucky, perhaps that’s all it was.”
“What do you actually want?” I questioned, squinting at the madman in front of me. I felt the need to push the envelope, prod the beast in order to move its fat ass in a direction that I could contend with. “What is it that drives you to be in my orbit even though I’m basically an ant next to you?”
A massive wave of purple light streaked with black surrounded the both of us. I gazed around at the creepy dome cutting us off from the outside world. It held a cosmic weight of its own.
“I want to live!” Merlin pleaded. Ash fell from the front of his cigar, his hands shaking before he reined them in. “I want a place to live out a life again, BE just Merlin again, for once. I don’t want to have to worry about assassination attempts, power plays, the meddling Council, I just want to BE. I pursued power for the sake of power and now I have nothing that means anything anymore.”
“But what does that have to do with me?” I shot back, not seeing at all where this was going. I was truly confused. It just didn’t add up.
My long lost ancestor many times removed groaned. “If you had just CONQUERED Earth like a normal power hungry human, I could have lived there in peace somewhere on your planet in some forgotten corner! I could have been the hidden master on my own mountaintop somewhere while you were stuck with the responsibilities as the benefactor or holder of the throne!” Merlin leaned in. “Listen! Humanity is returning in droves, and with you at the helm as the center of attention, you could have had my burden for a few hundred years!”
“So give me back my woman and I’ll freaking conquer Earth for you,” I sassed, rolling my eyes.
“Can’t do that.” I hated watching the old man cringe. I don’t know how he did it but he made me feel like I was picking on an elderly person in a nursing home, as if I were the one causing all of his problems. But I KNEW that wasn’t the case, how the fuck was he manipulating me?
I threw my demand right back at him. “Send me back in time to do it all over again. You’ve got Chaos magic, make some chaos and put me back to the very beginning.” Merlin’s face fell further and further as my excitement grew. “I uh, I can save Elizabeth! I can fix so many things! With knowledge of the future, I can do so much!”
His face waffled back and forth between surprise, thoughtful contemplation, and hesitant meandering. The deep wrinkles seemed to fight each other for words. “How do you say . . . . kind of but not really, and not in the way you think . . .” Merlin admitted, shrinking in on himself a bit more. His cigar smoke gathered together, warping into revolving helixes and then into multi-dimensional patterns and back again. “Chaos and time are strange, very unpredictable on that front. The divergence is skewed, even more so as they break further down the continuum . . .” The smoke formed an image of a flowing river with a creek that branched off widely looping out but rejoining the main current again a finger’s width of space from where it originally broke off. “I can put you back to almost the same time where I found you but that window is extremely limited but not exact and-”
My temper peaked. “Then WHAT GOOD are you?” I yelled, no longer afraid of interrupting the most intimidating person I’d ever met. “You’re too damn powerful to actually do anything. You’re too important to hide behind the scenes, and too freaking dangerous for me not to worry about! What’s in it for me? Why would I go along with anything you say when it would just fuck up my life anyway?”
A sparkle gleamed from the depths of his eye. “Well, I could do two things, one for you and one for your brother.”
My enraged finger that was two inches from his cherry red nose stayed exactly where it was. The urge to poke him straight in the eye almost won out. It would’ve been worth it.
“Go on . . .”
“I could find all those little shards of pure Chaos you lost so long ago,” he said, his sly grin getting bigger as my eyes got wide. “And . . . I could probably help your brother with bringing his seed of sorcery to the fore or possibly help him get another seed. And maybe one other little possibility as well.”
As I leaned forward and gave the slightest beginning of a nod of my head, the very tiniest hint of confirmation that I might be on board, Merlin stood up violently with a huge smile on his face.
“Then we are AGREED!”
A needle of condensed mental mana speared from Merlin’s hand directly into my brain just before a non-existent wind picked up, swirls of blue and gold flashing into existence and blasting me through a splinter of a portal. I felt like I was shoved through a hose and then spat out and stomped on. I found myself flat on my back on the floor of my Lab.
“FUCK!”