It is of tremendous importance, when a wizard enters a battle, that he should have prepared sufficient spells beforehand to meet anything he might face during the coming fight. It is even more important that the wizard act bravely during the course of the fight, so that he might do credit to the names of wizards everywhere. And what happens should the magician’s army lose the fray? Of the greatest importance of all, therefore, is the wizard’s insistence that, before the battle, he be paid in full.
— THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM,
VOLUME Ill
“Look at all the pretty birdies!”
The Griffin’s claw dropped from my shirt as it turned to stare.
Hundreds of dark shapes filled the sky.
“ ‘Tis the Netherhells!” I heard Ebenezum shout.
“Doom!” Hendrek cried.
Was this, then, the Forxnagel? Was everything we had worked on for so long truly over? Would I never see Vushta, city of a thousand forbidden delights?
Alea ran across the stage and threw herself into my arms. She kissed me passionately.
“If this is the end, Wuntie,” she breathed in my ear, “I want to die held by a simple, country boy.”
The warmth of her kiss almost made me forget what I had seen. But the sight had been too chilling for even Alea’s passion to erase. I turned away from the woman to look at the sky again.
They were closer now, hundreds upon hundreds of demons with wings. At a distance, I thought many of them seemed to have two heads, but I saw now that some of the winged creatures held two-footed demon riders. Then again, others in that flying congregation did have two heads. It was a truly fearsome sight.
“Wuntvor!” my master called. “Gather our party together! We face great odds, but we are not without our resources. We must fight them together!”
I turned to the others. “Hendrek! Hubert! Snarks! Brownie! We rally around the shoe!”
There was a sharp banging behind me. I turned to see the unicorn, beating its golden horn on the edge of the stage.
“Wait a moment!” the splendid beast cried. “I am not with these creatures! I thought we had a bargain!”
In the heat of events, I had completely forgotten the silly creature. The heavens knew we could use all the help we could get. Still, would a beast that spent all its time standing around looking fantastically beautiful really be all that handy?
“Um,” I answered indecisively. “What would you like to do?”
“Why, fight magnificently for freedom, of course.”
The unicorn snorted and pawed the soft earth. “I have been imprisoned. If I escaped, they would only bring me back here again. Now, though, I see a chance to roam the verdant hills again. How much better your party will fight, with a noble unicorn to guide them on!”
The beast reared upon its hind legs. “Unicorns also make a very attractive centerpiece if you’re contemplating painting the scene of battle.” It raised its golden horn toward the sun. “See?”
“Wuntvor!” my master called.
The demons were almost upon us!
“Pop!” the Hippogriff cried nervously.
“What?” The Griffin shook itself and blinked. “Those aren’t birdies. Those are demons! What is going on here?”
A voice called down from on high:
“Guxx and his demons have come today,
And soon will hold the world in sway!”
“Join us, then!” I called to the unicorn. “ ‘Tis the dread, rhyming demon, Guxx Unfufadoo!” We would need all the help we could get to defeat this fiend quickly, for, with every rhyme the demon made, its power grew!
The unicorn leapt upon the stage with a movement so graceful that it took my breath away.
The great beast’s nostrils flared. “Then let them fight a unicorn!”
“Wait a second here!” the Griffin shouted to the sky. “Do you have an invitation?”
The demons appeared to be tightening into battle formation.
“Doom!” Hendrek was at my side. “Come. We will form a circle around the shoe. That way we can defend ourselves, until Hubert and the wizard find an opening.”
So Ebenezum was well enough to guide us into battle. Somehow, despite the hopeless odds, I began to think we might see Vushta after all.
But oh, for my stout oak staff! I looked over at the corner of the stage where the Griffin had done much of its wood shredding. Well, if 1 had no staff, a plank would have to do. 1 quickly found a loose board of sufficient size.
Alea was waiting for me in the battle circle. “Oh, Wuntie,” she cried. “Our last moments—together!”
I wished she wouldn’t kiss me that way. It disturbed my concentration. Still, if you were going to your death, I imagined there was worse preparation.
“You’ll be able to fight better if you start breathing again,” Snarks suggested. “And you’d probably get better leverage if you held that board a little lower. Well, I don’t need to mention your posture again, but you could have a more efficient stance if you—”
“You shouldn’t be doing this!” the Griffin bellowed aloft, causing Snarks to pause midsentence. “We have an agreement with the Netherhells!”
The rider on the first flying demon replied:
“Your claims to my ears sound absurd,
For soon demons will rule the world. “
“It is Guxx all right,” I muttered. The talent behind that particular poem wiped all doubt from my mind.
Snarks nodded grimly. “For rhymes that bad, his power should decrease.”
The unicorn snorted, and looked at me with its large, soulful eyes. “I would probably be much more effective if I had a rider.”
I hefted my new-found plank experimentally. “A rider?” I asked.
“Yes!” the unicorn replied with half-closed eyes. “Someone to ride with me, nobly into battle.” The beast sighed. “I tell you, it’s been so long since I’ve had a virgin by my side.”
“Oh, Wuntvor!” Alea whispered. “Look at the creature! How beautiful!”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, Alea had not quite caught what the beautiful beast implied. But Alea! Now that was an idea! I turned back to the unicorn. “Why not let the woman ride you?”
The unicorn glanced briefly at Alea. “Sorry. Not interested.” The beast lowered its horn. “Oh, but my head is so heavy! Oh, for a virgin lap before battle!”
I decided this might be a good time to confer with Ebenezum on battle strategy.
“All right,” the Griffin was saying a little uncertainly. “Well, perhaps you weren’t invited. But there’s always room for a few more. Why don’t you just land your troops in that field over there, and we mythological beasts can get on with our meeting. You wouldn’t happen to have brought any gold? No, no, silly of me to assume— Well, we’re all friends here. Why don’t you land? We’ll even let you bring up points of business.”
Guxx pointed at the shoe.
“You harbor my enemy!
You are no friend of me!’’
The rhymes were getting worse. I began to wish the demons would attack.
I looked up at Guxx. He was close enough now so that I could make out what would, for want of better words, be called facial features. If anything, the demon was more hideous than I remembered. His skin was still a sickly, dark green, and his evil smile betrayed a mouth that was far too wide, with far too many teeth. Now, though, the demon sported something new—a mane of what looked like bright red hair.
“ Tis much worse than I thought!” Snarks shuddered. “Guxx has made himself the Grand Hoohah!”
“The Grand Hoohah?” I asked, taken aback. “What is the Grand Hoohah?”
Snarks turned to me, his face a mixture of fear and pity. “Trust me!” he whispered. “You don’t want to know!”
My eyes slid from Guxx, who was shouting order poems to his lieutenants, to the demon beast that he rode. I wished I hadn’t looked. The thing was the color of yellow clay after a rainstorm, except for its eyes, which seemed to glow green from within. It had the requisite fangs and claws that seemed to be standard equipment for all creatures of the Netherhells. It nodded at me and licked its lips.
“Dinner,” it said.
Moments before, I had anticipated being eaten by some of the less ethical members of the mythological community. Somehow, that now appeared greatly preferable to the option currently before me.
“Much worse,” Snarks muttered. “The Grand Hoohah? Much worse. Oh, why did I have to leave the Netherhells? Oh, why did I have to turn honest?” The demon nervously chewed upon his stubby fingers.
For an instant, the world was still. I knew then that the battle was about to begin.
“Boy!” The Brownie began to dance furiously. “Is it time for Brownie Power!”
“For a change,” Snarks whispered, “I wish the Brownie was right. What can he do? Give everybody a hotfoot?”
“Why don’t you go suggest it?” I asked.
But there was no time. Guxx lifted both his demonic arms and mussed up his flaming red badge of office. A hundred hideous things began their descent from the sky.
Guxx screamed:
“Now our foes will get their due!
Minutes from now we’ll have wizard stew!”
“Wait a second!” the Griffin was shouting. “You know that mythological beasts should be strictly neutral in arguments of this sort! What about the Camelot Convention?”
“Drive our enemies to the ground!
First demonic horde, go down!”
The wizard’s hands shot up in the air. I could hear my master’s muffled voice shout a quick string of mystic words.
The first group of demons plummeted toward earth.
Until they suddenly slowed down, then stopped, then started plummeting up. Their alarmed cries faded into the upper air.
“Simple gravity reversal spell,” my master explained. He sneezed once. “Pardon me,” he intoned. His hands disappeared within the shoe to seek out his handkerchief.
“Think twice about what you are doing here!” the Griffin called upward. “If you want us to get out of your way, just let us know. Don’t be hasty! Remember the Mabinogion Accord!”
Guxx roared at his first setback. He tore furiously at his red headdress:
“Now it’s time we start to fight,
Second demon horde, take flight!”
Ebenezum was still busy blowing his nose!
“Hubert!” I called. “It’s up to you!”
“A command performance!” the dragon yelled back. He took a deep breath and shot out a ball of flame half his size. The second horde dispersed in panic. The fireball consumed all but the quickest. The few survivors fell fighting among the crowd.
“Hold it a second here!” the Griffin called. “Now, if we all keep cool heads, we can avoid bloodshed! We’re really just one big happy family after all, aren’t we? Remember the Grendel Non-Aggression Pact?”
Guxx was enraged. Handfuls of his red crown fell to earth.
“Attack, third horde!
Give them a lickin’!
Don’t forget their leader
with the head of a chicken!”
“What?” the Griffin roared. “AFTAOMAIBAC! Let’s wipe these vermin from the face of the earth!”
The Griffin took flight, followed by the Rok and the Hippogriff. The dragon took another deep breath.
“Stay, friend Hubert!” Ebenezum called. “Now that there are other than demons on the field of battle, we will have to be more selective in our attack.”
“Well, if you say so,” Hubert said reluctantly. “They weren’t a very good audience.”
“Make way! Make way!” cried a small voice, barely audible in the melee. “It’s Brownie time!”
There was a crash of thunder twice as loud as anything Ebenezum had produced.
Cries of alarm came from the demons overhead, followed by a great banging, as if someone were beating upon the Netherhells horde with drumsticks.
“Cover your heads! Cover your heads! In a moment, we’ll be getting the fallout.” The Brownie laughed delightedly. “I knew I should have used the tango!”
Shoes fell everywhere. Boots, slippers, sandals, those funny things with the curved toes that you found in the Eastern Kingdoms; if it could be called a shoe, it fell. So did demons. Hundreds of them scattered on the stage and through the crowd.
Now the battle began in earnest.
I moved close by my master’s shoe, my new-found plank held high. The wizard Ebenezum was the key to this battle. I would protect his shoe to my last ounce of strength, so that he might concentrate upon his spells. Come, demons, I thought! But for some reason, the fiends of the Netherhells were keeping their distance.
I looked around to see my compatriots in the midst of the fray. Headbasher whirled about Hendrek’s head, leading the immense man in a complex dance, thrashing and clubbing his way through the throng. Hendrek moved in an entirely, different way when he held his weapon, leaping and pirouetting with a grace that seemed highly improbable in one of his bulk. It was almost as if the enchanted club controlled the warrior, not the other way around. Cries of “Doom!” and “Urk!” filled the air.
Snarks had managed to find a staff of some sort, and was playing a complicated game with a whole force from the Netherhells. The truth-telling demon would shout something out to one of his opponents that seemed to outrage the Netherhells denizen so that it would rush at Snarks in a blind anger. Snarks would then render the demon foe unconscious with a sharp rap from his staff, and confront the next enemy in line.
Why weren’t they attacking my master? For a second, I felt as if I should leave the wizard’s side and wade out into the midst of things, dealing destruction with my sturdy plank. But perhaps the demons were not attacking for fear of the combined might of a wizard’s magic and an apprentice’s muscle. Maybe they wished to distract me, and attack Ebenezum when his guard was gone.
My master’s hands once again emerged from their protective shoe. Now we would show them a thing or two! His hands made a complex series of mystic passes in the air. A close-packed group of demons howled hideously as they began to sink into the earth, accompanied by a loud sucking sound. Soon, they had disappeared altogether, leaving nothing but a muddy expanse of ground. There was a final loud rumble, as if some underground gases had escaped from a hidden fissure. That corner of the battleground fell silent.
“Simple mud activation spell,” Ebenezum remarked. This time, though, he sneezed deeply a half-dozen times.
A great deal of noise still came from overhead. I looked up to see the Griffin, the Hippogriff and the Rok surrounding the still-airborne Guxx.
“I’ll teach you not to bring any gold!” the Griffin shouted.
“Careful, Pop!” the Hippogriff warned. “He’s a magic demon, after all. We need to employ some strategy!”
“I can dig it,” the Rok remarked. “Why don’t you two cats grab his arms while I rip off his head?”
Guxx tossed handfuls of red hair at his attackers.
“Rip his head, they say with glee
Fourth demon horde, attack these three!”
A horrible cry arose as a hundred more demons came screaming through a bank of clouds. Rok, Griffin and Hippogriff flew in different directions.
“There’re too many of them!” screamed a panicked mythological creature. “We’ll never defeat them!”
“On the contrary,” a deep voice rumbled. “They have already lost the battle.”
A dozen creatures turned to face the large gray shape.
“What do you mean?” one of them said.
“Simple,” the gray shape replied. “They have never faced wombling!”
With that, the Bog Wombler began to roll and shake simultaneously. The demons in the vicinity didn’t have a chance.
But there was a host of demons above us as well! Hubert lessened their numbers with well-placed spears of flame, while Alea held tight to the dragon’s tail.
“Now!” she cried.
The tail crashed down on three demons who had wandered too close.
“What an act!” Alea cried as she examined the squashed remains. “If only the critics could see us now!”
“It takes two to tango!” a small voice cried.
“I’ve got you!” a demon yelled as it leapt for the Brownie. “Mzzmflx! Grzzllbllg!” The demon fell from the stage, its mouth full of shoes.
The unicorn leapt upon the stage, impaling demons upon its razor-sharp horn, then tossing them jauntily aside with but a flick of its well-muscled neck. The gorgeously sweating beast paused before me.
“Ride with me!” the unicorn cried. “How magnificent I look destroying demons. How attractive their blood appears, set off by my shining, golden horn.”
The beautiful beast sighed, a single tear forming in one dark eye. “Yet I am incomplete. Oh, with the proper rider, how even more magnificent I would be!”
I mentioned that I was certain it had a point, but this was not the best time to discuss it.
“Wuntvor?”
Thankfully, my master interrupted.
The wizard blew his nose. “If you would move a bit? I need a better view aloft.”
As I hastily scrambled to the side of the shoe, Ebenezum’s hands once again emerged. Magic words and motions came in quick succession.
The cloud the demons had passed through grew hands. Dozens of hands. They began slapping any demons near enough to reach. Confusion reigned in the sky.
The wizard blew his nose again. “That should give our side a little time.”
“I thought we would lose the battle for sure,” I admitted.
“Indeed. Yet I was prepared. Demon hordes always come in fours. ‘Twas nothing more than a simple cloud-hand formation—”
Suddenly, the wizard began to sneeze as though the shoe weren’t even there.
The wizard gasped for air. “I’ve done too much . . . need to rest . . . keep the others away, for but a moment.” The sneezing resumed.
My master had overextended himself! Well, I had stayed by his side in case he needed me. Now, I was his sole protection. I gripped my plank with a new ferocity.
I heard a great scream overhead. Despite the rain of shoes and slapping hands, Guxx had somehow managed to stay aloft. He stared at my master’s shoe with naked hatred.
“The wizard spoils my every plan!
But now I’ll go end his lifespan!”
That was why no one had attacked. The other demons had saved the shoe for Guxx! He would have to get through me before he could assault my master! I would beat away the demon Guxx with my plank!
Guxx landed on the stage with a mighty thump. I found myself face to face with Guxx’s demon mount.
“Dinner.”
“Eat wood, foul fiend!” I cried, swinging my plank.
To my surprise, the demon took a large bite out of my plank with razor teeth. It chewed thoughtfully. “Not bad,” it remarked, “but I much prefer human flesh.”
“Indeed.” Ebenezum blew his nose behind me. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”
The demon Guxx ripped off his red headdress and threw it on the floor before the wizard.
“You’ve forgotten Guxx, you wizard upstart,
But you’ll remember me when I tear you apart!”
“Let me think,” Ebenezum replied. “I do feel that I know you from somewhere. One meets so many demons, you know, that they all run together after a while.”
Guxx screamed:
“I’m one demon you can’t mistake,
For I’ll have your head upon a plate!”
“Indeed,” Ebenezum remarked. “For a while, I thought you were attempting poetry. I used to know a demon who always attempted poetry. Unpleasant fellow. Never bathed, either. Luckily though, you don’t seem to be saying anything that could even be considered a rhyme.”
Guxx jumped up and down and shook his fists.
“I’ll teach you to mock my poetry!
Now Guxx will go and kill his foe—et—
Er, that doesn’t work.”
The demon cleared his throat.
“So you criticize my poems!
But soon you ‘II be nothing but broken bo— “
The demon stomped his clawed foot in frustration.
“Your pardon,” the wizard said. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment while I free my hands?”
“Enough of this little drama!” The demon mount facing me swallowed the remains of my plank in a single gulp. “We have our own destinies to decide. And yours, good fellow, rests within my stomach. Glmmphmtt zzzznrrbbtt!”
The demon’s mouth was full of shoes.
“Brownie Power to the rescue!” a small voice piped.
The demon mount swallowed all the shoes in one gulp. “Trying to fill me up won’t do. Flying is hard work. Airborne demons are insatiable!” It paused in its pursuit for an instant to look down. “And Brownies make an excellent dessert!”
“No, you don’t!” a magnificently modulated voice cried. “A unicorn will save you!”
The flying demon belched. “It’s much too crowded and noisy down here. Wreaks havoc on one’s digestion.” The creature flew straight up in the air, barely missing a death blow from a golden horn as the unicorn came galloping across the stage.
My master had begun another series of mystic passes. Guxx, momentarily preoccupied with determining a proper rhyme, screamed in anger.
“No more spells, don’t even start,
For now I’ll tear your shoe apart!”
Guxx launched himself straight for the wizard. The shoe rocked with the force of his landing as Guxx grabbed both of my master’s gesticulating hands. The air was filled with shouts of both demon and wizard, Ebenezum attempting desperately to complete a spell, Guxx madly trying to devise poems to increase his power.
The flying demon had settled back upon the stage. “There, now that the horse with the horn is gone. I hate to eat and run, but sometimes—urk!”
“Doom. Headbasher does its hellish work again.”
Hendrek turned toward the furiously struggling Guxx and Ebenezum. The giant shoe seemed to be leaping across the stage of its own accord.
“Demon!” I heard Ebenezum gasp. “If you do not release me. . . there will be. . .”
“Stop your threats, my enemy!” Guxx replied. “For I shall soon rend—uh—thee. No, that doesn’t work, either!”
My master’s criticism had totally undermined the demon’s poetic confidence. Perhaps this battle could be won!
My master gasped again. “. . . trouble.”
Ebenezum then sneezed one of the world’s great sneezes.
The shoe exploded outward, taking Guxx with it to some distant place. Only Hendrek’s intervening bulk saved me from being blown off the stage. Even the mighty warrior, thick and heavy as he was, staggered back from the ferocity of the blast.
The warrior’s great size blocked my view of the rest of the stage. What had happened to my master?
Hendrek turned to me.
“Doom, “he said.