Encompassing All The Beauty Of Life

She checked three times to make sure they had their tickets before leaving the hotel; he gave the others directions over the phone from the back of the cab weaving through city traffic. They paid and jumped out still two blocks away because they couldn’t wait for the light, couldn’t wait another minute.

“First time?” The man in the booth smiled. “Party of two?”

“Our friends aren’t here yet… should we wait? What do you suggest?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find each other inside. All part of it.” He took the tickets, returned the stubs; the doors slid open. “Enjoy yourselves.”

Fantasy Drabble #387 "You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here"

The candle-topped skull on the end of the bar opened its mouth, and hissed: “Closing time. Cloooosing tiiiiime.”

Borthen downed the last of his drink and nodded at the barkeep. “How much to close out?”

“You’re paid up.”

“...I haven’t paid at all.” He patted his pocket, which jingled with coin.

“You’re paid up.” The barkeep pointed to a dark corner.

There, at a table, was the outline of a hooded female figure. He should have been able to see her better, even in the shadows. She beckoned with a spectral hand; he was just drunk enough to go over.

Fantasy Drabble #386: "In The Mouth Of Madness"

 

"I am here, Great One."

"Do you have My sacrifice?"

"I..." He paused, fearful, breathing heavy from the difficult crossing over broken ground. "I cannot catch them, O my Master. Perhaps if there were not so much pain—"

"The pain is a reminder of My love. It is My boon. You must earn that pain. Bring Me My sacrifice."

"I will, Great One. I swear it."

"Bring Me My sacrifice and the pain will make us One. Bring Me My sacrifice and join with Me."

"Yes..." he nodded, winced, straightened, steeled himself for the coming agony.  "Yes, O my Master."

Fantasy Drabble #385: "The Beast"

"We have... a problem."

The Baroness rolled her eyes. "You may have a problem, but you've been paid handsomely. I expect delivery, or there will be..." the faintest trace of a wicked smirk slithered onto her face "...penalties."

"There is the matter of safety, madam. The... item is more difficult to handle than anticipated. If we could discuss—“

“There will be no discussion. Off with you.”

He withdrew to the anteroom, where Yon waited.

“Well?”

“She's adamant.”

“Fine. We can get the beast here, the chains should last a few more hours. After that...” Yon shrugged.

Earpiece

“Shake it off.”

His eyes were closed, and he tasted blood and dust. There was cheering, and booing, and various shouts of encouragement and support, mostly for his opponent. But her voice was still in his head, so the spell was still working.

“Shake it off. You still have the knife.”

He sat up, spat. He could hear the Jogor’s meaty growl off to the left, and then behind, circling, stalking. It could leap at any time, from any direction. “I think it’s over.”

“When I say, roll to your left, and hold up the knife where your head was.”

You Really Have To Want It

He staggered across the rocks and broken shells towards a figure waiting on the beach, trailing blood in the water from his cut-up feet; he dropped to his knees as soon as it was safe.

“Welcome.”

He managed: “Yeah, gimme a minute.”

“Take all the time you need.” The man was dressed in an expensive suit, not a speck of sand on him, not a drip of sweat. “Was it necessary to blow up the boat?”

“No witnesses.”

“I admire your dedication to operational security.”

He sat down on the sand, nodded. “Thanks.”

“So let’s talk about your immortal soul.”

Fantasy Drabble #384 : “Practicum”

We’d meet in odd places to avoid been seen; the more isolated the better. We’d all spend the week learning a new one, some abjuration or evocation, some enchantment or illusion, and then we’d get together for the weekend ‘show and tell’. Nobody ever got hurt. Nobody ever went too far. Usually it ended with giddy whispers down the pub; only occasionally did it end with furtive sex up at mine or his or hers.

Eventually Lena got religion and gave it up. Only pure divination for her, now, revealed wisdom. Sometimes she calls to say she’s praying for me.

Fantasy Drabble #383: “Trace”

Are you there? Can you hear me?

They’d been here together, that day, just before the end. She’d been happy, she’d twirled with face upturned to the sun and sky, and then lowered her chin to smile at him mischievously.

Can you answer? Can you speak? Wave if you can. Hold up your hand so I know you can hear me.

The tiny jade  statuette was cold in his hands, where it had been warm.

I’ll try again. I’ll find something more powerful, I’ll go find someone who knows how to fix it. I’ll keep trying. This has to work.

Fantasy Drabble #382 : “Divorcée”

“You’re Fred? Sam’s friend?”

“…Yes, ma’am.” It was later than normal for a delivery.

“You can put the bags there, on the counter.” She tapped her cigarette ash into the kitchen sink, absent-mindedly played with the belt from her robe. “Sam said you’re quite the track star.”

“All-State, two years running. I’ll be on the college team come September.” He put the groceries down gently. He turned back, leaned against the counter. This is where I normally ask for a tip. “Sam mentioned you as well.”

“Well.” She smiled slyly, fangs just showing. “That makes this simpler, then, doesn’t it?”

Speed Chess

It was a castle once, with a bustling town around its base, but now it was a ruin surrounded by dense forest. The sorcerer climbed over a waist-high remnant of a defensive wall and made his way into a building so long-abandoned that it seemed unlikely to have remained standing without some magical aid.

The statue sat at a table, across from an empty chair, with the chess board between, its fingers having seemingly just released the tip of one of the marble pieces.

“The Bishop, then? Interesting move. I would have thought the rook.”  He laid his cloak over the back of the chair and set his bottle and glass down beside the board. “No matter.”

If he sat long enough, he’d be able to see the stone hand moving away from the piece, so slowly as to be nearly imperceptible. It would move only so far: the statue needed to see its opponent’s play clearly, but to withdraw it any further would eat already-precious time.

“The Queen again; you’re in check. Mate in…” he checked the board again, hand still on the piece, just to be sure, before releasing. “…six moves.”

He wondered how long it would take.

Auntie Magic

“There’s magic here,” she said, almost in a whisper, and then more loudly so Cara could hear clearly, “But of course there would be. Always magic in the forest: so much life. Living and dying and feeding the new life…”

“Is it enough?”

“Enough? Enough?” the old woman spat. “It’s not a wick to be burned, girl. It’s not lantern-fuel. It’s a material to be formed, for the moment, for as long as needed, and then sent on its way with our thanks in its pocket.”

“Fine, fine. I’m sorry. But can you do it?”

“Go home. Wait for him.”

The Governess Of Floods

The service station bathroom was dirty, it stank, and the walls were stained colors she didn’t want to think about, but it had running water and a soap dispenser, and that was all she needed. She soaped and scrubbed her hands for what seemed like an eternity, until her already-irritated skin was nearly bleeding, before finally rinsing with water hot enough that she winced in pain.

She stared at herself in the mirror while she dried her hands, the crack in the glass bifurcating her face into a strange, otherworldly visage she didn’t recognize. She shivered, and then immediately felt a pang of embarrassment. “Oh, get it together.”

The door groaned as she pushed her way out into the cool late-night air. He was already in the car, the engine was running. He’d done his snack shopping, paid — or killed the attendant — and come back out to the car all while she was washing his hands. She’d kept him waiting. “Sorry,” she said, as she slid into the restored two-tone Bel Air.

Oberon was reading a map, a paper map, half-folded and well-worn. He intoned, “Mm-hmm”, and kept reading.

There was a white plastic bag stuffed with junk food on the seat between them. She started picking through the bag: two cold and dewy Cokes, a bag of Funions, M&Ms, some generic licorice, some—

His hand was around her wrist, pulling it up to where the light coming in the window played across the abraded skin of her palms, her knuckles, the top of her hand. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing. Let go.” She tried to pull away, but his grip increased immediately; he was much stronger than her, stronger than anyone she’d ever known. “Please.”

“No human could have hurt you like this; you must have done it to yourself. So why?”

“No reason. Just washed them a little too hard is all.”

“A little too…” He let go, but he stared while she tore open the licorice package and pulled one out, nibbling at the end of it. “You’ve washed your hands twenty times since we left Chicago. Maybe more that I’ve missed. You’re washing the skin off. Is this new behavior or is this something you do? Tell me.”

He was the King. “It’s new.”

“Since when?”

“Since I killed the pig.”

“Since you beat the store manager to death—”

“Yes.”

“—with your hands. Those hands.”

“…yes.”

“Which I told you to do.”

“You commanded it.”

He put the car into gear and let it roll forward on idle, until the front end crossed from the concrete deck of the service station onto the asphalt roadway, and then casually shifted into gear. She was pressed back into the seat as the car accelerated up the ramp and onto the highway. Finally, when they were in the left lane, at eighty miles an hour, he answered, his voice clear even over all the noise. “I did.”

“Yes.”

“And you obeyed, and you’d never done something like that before, and now it plagues you. You look down at your hands and they’re caked with his blood and his brains and bits of his skull and clumps of hair, and you have to get it off, but it won’t come off. So you keep washing them and washing them because maybe this time.”

She said nothing.

“When I was young,” He said, and then trailed off. He reached into the bag without looking, pulled out a coke, popped the top, and took a swig. After smacking his lips, he continued, “When I was young, they were still just animals. Hairy, stupid, tree-swinging animals. I called him a pig, right? No better than a pig. No worse, mind you, but still.”

“Pigs can’t talk.”

“Pigs can’t pin you against the wall in the stock room and shove their hands up your sweater. Pigs can’t—”

“Okay.”

“You know why they’re everywhere, now, the humans? The pig, his mother, his aunt, his cousin with the oxy addiction and his racist grandma? Do you know why we don’t rule this world?”

“No…”

“Because we fought amongst ourselves. Because we were busy doubting ourselves, doubting each other, and we didn’t notice the creeping rot of humanity spreading across everything. Look around you. I mean it, look.”

The highway had taken them out between towns, past even the developed farmland, but still there was the glow of human lights, everywhere, in all directions. It drowned the pinprick light of the stars in a morass of featureless grey. Only the moon stood out.

“Here’s the bad news: this is the Faerie Kingdom. This is. We’re driving across it, right now. But we’ve lost it, to them. Understand? We’ve been conquered, overrun. They’ve paved over our fields and painted strip malls across our sacred places. Their sewer pipes carry their stinking shit through our earth. Ready for the good news?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“The good news is this: we can get it back, and it can be the way it was before. There are more of us now than there ever were, even then. Not as many as there are of them, but that doesn’t matter. And you know exactly why, because you killed the pig.”

“I don’t—”

“Was it hard?”

“What?”

“Was it hard to kill him? I don’t mean emotionally.” He took another swig of the Coke, a long gulp, raising it, upending it until the last drops emptied down his throat. He set the empty can carefully back in the bag. “Was it physically difficult to end his life?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I hit him once and he was on the ground. He hit the edge of the office door, it was open, you know, and he went down hard. I think he was stunned. He looked surprised. He looked confused.”

“Sure.”

“And I just kept hitting him until... until I felt, I don’t know, done.”

“You lived among them. I mean, we all do. To one extent or another, we have to. But you lived like one of them. That can poison your perspective. Gimme the Funions.” He held out his hand, and she ripped open the bag and handed it to him. “Thank you. Soon we’ll be home. I mean, my home, our home, for now, anyway.”

“Okay—”

“You’ll live among your own people. Where before there was only the banal scourge of humanity you will find the magic and wonder of your own kind. And believe me,” he tossed a Funion into his mouth, “killing the pig won’t bother you anymore.”

“Okay.”

“Until then, just, less washing your hands.”

Sympathetic Magic.

I know how Harold Penderman will die. I know because I caused it; or, more properly, I will have caused it. His crime, his transgression, that doesn’t matter. Suffice to say it was a capital crime, and judgment is nigh.

He will find himself tied by wrists and ankles, tied with strong rope, sailor’s rope, tied to posts or pins driven deep into the ground. Under him will lie a fire-pit, and that fire-pit will somehow be lit aflame. And then, finally, Harold Penderman will burn.

I know not when or how these will happen, only that it will happen.

Implication

“Is that supposed to impress me? A stupid parlor trick?”

“This?” the rock raised higher, began to spin slowly, tumble end-over-end. “No, I suppose not. You’d have to be smart to be impressed by this. You’d have to be able to think it through. To get the ramifications.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

He smiled. The rock fell back into his palm. He turned his hand to the side, and if fell to the soft ground with a soft thud. “More or less.”

“Listen, you little shit—”

“Wally.”  He reached his hand skyward, towards a full Moon. “Everything scales up.”

Fantasy Drabble #381 “Close Up Magic”

I don’t need the tips; I mostly do it for the practice.

Anything that requires concentration, requires a steady hand, nimble fingers… anything that requires magic, requires practice. Hours upon hours, the same movements again and again, until they are second nature. And if I must practice, I might as well do it for the tourists, for the local children, I might as well stand in the warm breeze of a sunny day out in the Plaza, I might as well make a few coin while I’m at it.

That, and the joy of knowing they think it’s a ‘trick’.

Foreign Policy

He followed her uphill, struggling, wheezing while she climbed effortlessly. When he reached the top, she was reciting incantations in a language only she could name, much less speak. An ethereal window appeared before her, through which the distant mountains appeared much closer. Between the peaks, he spied movement. “How big are these giants, Holiness?”

Her voice decanted a memory more distant in time than the mountains were over land. “Big enough to trample a man on horseback, and not realize it. Big enough to stand astride the Keep at Nochwallag with both soles flat on the earth.”

Nochwallag Keep was a crumbled ruin, and had been since before he was born. “Is that how it fell?” How old is she?

“It fell from hubris, and too little grain.” She glanced back at him, amused by the look of confusion on his face, and waved the window back into nothingness. “A story for another time. We still have many days walk ahead of us. And then, likely, many days of parlay. Come.”

He followed her down the front of the hill, the guards behind, the porters further still.

“Can they see us?”

“They knew we were coming before we did.”

Faustian Return Policy

“Listen, this isn’t working out.”

It hadn’t been that long; I remembered his raspy voice. I picked up another crate and put it onto the stack. It hadn’t even been a year; he was early. “Not sure what you mean.”

“Most people, they ask for things for themselves. When you…” he trailed off, shrugged. “I guess I thought I just didn’t get your angle. But there wasn’t an angle. Was there?”

“Still not sure—”

“You’re just helping people. Selflessly. This hasn’t ever happened before.” He nervously stuck a cigarette in his mouth, flipped open a jet-black zippo and lit it. He took a long drag, holding in the smoke, savoring it, before speaking again. “It’s a problem, Ernest. Conceptually.”

“You gave me what I asked for, I’m prepared to give you what you asked for. When it’s time. It’s not time yet.” I hoisted another crate onto the pallet, and reached for the hand jack.

“You don’t get it. The deal is supposed to bring out corruption that’s already there. You make the deal, it means you deserve it. But this is… I can’t have your soul down there.” He flicked his cigarette at the ground. “Stinking up the place.”

Flurry Of Blows

The ghost was in the doorway, again, staring at him, again. “Go away.”

She floated in, along the wall with the bookcases, a spectral fingertip stretched out to pass through the book-spines like a stick clattering down a row of fence-posts. She turned the corner, kept following the wall. She kept her eyes on him, always.

“There’s nothing for you here. Perhaps the kitchen.” If she were to find the hammer that killed her, she would find she could touch it, lift it, and then she would come for him. “Or, perhaps the stables.”

She was behind him.

“Or, try—”

Fantasy Drabble #380 ”Barry Constantine”

I killed a demon in the parking lot of a Waffle House three days ago. That’s not really the beginning of the story, but it’ll do for now. Since then they’ve been trying to find and kill me. One of us for every one of them, that kind of thing. But they’re not that bright, so the number of us I owe keeps going up.

Sorry. But staying alive is kind of a priority for me. So if I’m asleep and someone knocks on the door, asks to come inside, but can’t say the Lord’s Prayer… don’t let them in.

Fantasy Drabble #379 “Raised”

The bones slide and spin and skitter across the stone floor to construct a pile; they pull themselves up, end over end, one upon another, balancing and wavering and finally knitting together into the terrible shape of a man.

“You were Robasch.”

The skull’s expression is unchanged, and unchangeable. It nods, once, slowly, with a sickening scrape.

“You swore an oath.”

Again a nod, deeper, almost a bow.

“Below us, deep within this cursed warren, lies my ring. Remember? You will retrieve it.”

The skeleton turned, but hesitated.

“Take heart. They have already killed you; they can’t do it again.”