“Wizards, like all mortals, need their rest. Casting spells, righting wrongs, and putting a little away for your old age can all be draining occupations. The true wizard must therefore always insist on a good night’s sleep, and a few days’ respite between tasks. After some particularly grueling work, a couple of weeks in the country are not out of line. In the aftermath of truly major assignments, of course, nothing less than a seaside vacation will do. And what of those situations in which a wizard’s work affects the very world around him, perhaps the fabric of the cosmos itself? Well, be advised that prime accommodations in Vushta must be reserved at least two months in advance.”
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume XXIII
It was all too much. I could barely support the pack upon my back. Its weight had surely increased four- fold. I leaned on my stout oak staff with such force that it bent each time I put my weight against it. I was sure it soon would snap. My feet barely lifted from the ground as I walked, and I stumbled over hidden rocks and roots as we made our slow way down what passed for a path. Sometime during our exhausted flight, we seemed to have wandered entirely away from the main highway and now found ourselves on a trail so overgrown that even the forest animals seemed to have given up on it.
As tired as I was, Ebenezum was more exhausted still. His head was bowed, his back was bent. His once wizardly strides had shortened to a very unwiz-ardly hobble.
When we had first departed Dame Sniggett’s after the successful resolution of her chicken problem, all had seemed well with my master. The tiredness that had ensued after his first use of the remedial herbs seemed to have passed him by entirely on the second application. The wizard began to talk expansively about the possibility of a cure, especially after we obtained another quantity of the healing poultice.
But my master spoke prematurely. His second reaction to the drug came after we had been on the road two full days and was fully four times worse than his earlier reaction. His first response, after our battle with Tork, had been exhaustion. His response after our chicken incident made exhaustion seem like a highly active state.
Then, of course, there were our constant encounters with assassins. And did I mention the increasing incidence of earthquakes? At first I thought it was my balance going, following my muscles into the blanket of fatigue. But no, we were plagued by ever-increasing tremors, as if giants were stomping foothills into the earth. These left us shaken at the least, and often not standing at all.
Ebenezum stumbled forward, managing at last to stand reasonably still. He paused and turned to me, his eyes once so capable of wizardly rage and sorcer-ous persuasion now no more than red and tired.
“Rest,” was all he said.
I pointed to a likely group of stones on the far side of the path where we might sit for a while. We made our way over to them as best we could. I removed my pack with rather less grace than I would have liked. I decided not to look inside it just yet. I would discover what had broken at some later time.
Ebenezum didn’t even notice the noise. He was too busy sitting down, which, like everything else just then, occupied a great amount of his time. He groaned and exhaled at the same instant, as if in the process of sitting he might release all his problems to the four winds.
We sat for a long moment in silence. My master’s labored breathing softened over time. At last, he pushed back his cap to look at me.
“I was afraid of this,” he said. “A second use of that potion has drained all the vitality from my body. Twould kill me to use it again.” My master paused to regain his wind.
“What are we to do?” I asked before I realized that the wizard had again dozed where he sat.
I knew then it was up to me. Ebenezum was exhausted beyond all imagining. I must find someplace he could rest and recover.
“Pardon?” said a voice from across the road.
I looked up quickly. Two heavily cloaked figures stood a scant yard away.
“Did I say something?” I inquired.
“Oh, no.” One of the cloaked figures stepped forward. Only his hands were visible, but they waved about wildly as he spoke, as if they wished to escape the cloak that hid the rest of him.
“I said ‘pardon,’ “ he continued, “for I wish to speak with you. You must excuse me, for I have not the social graces of conversation. For you see, I am but a poor hermit, and seldom speak at all.”
The speaker pulled back his hood, revealing a round, bald head that shone in the afternoon sun.
“Oh,” I replied after I deciphered his conversation. “And you wished to say something to me?”
“Most assuredly, yes.” His hands darted about to indicate his chest. “As I have stated, I am but a poor hermit and religious seeker, Heemat by name, pledged for twenty years never to utter a word. Yes, for twenty years these lips are sealed, never to groan in pain or laugh with joy. But that is of no consequence, for when I saw the two of you by the side of the road, I found ‘twas time to break my vow.”
Heemat continued to smile. I looked to my master, but the wizard snored lightly upon his rock. He had managed to sleep through all of this. It was only then that I realized how truly fatigued Ebenezum was.
Well, tired though I was in turn, someone would have to see this situation through. And I would do it in a way that would make my master proud. I stared at this bald, smiling fellow. Something about him struck me as peculiar. Now, I thought, how would Ebenezum handle this?
“Indeed,” I said, determined to seek this hermit’s true nature. “You are a religious seeker?”
“Yes,” Heemat replied, lifting his hands to the skies. “I follow the lesser deity, Plaugg the Fairly Magnificent.”
“Indeed.” I decided I would leave this particular point for the nonce. “And are you sworn to silence for twenty years?”
“Well, yes, more or less. But as we walked down this road to see the two of you in such obvious need...”
The hermit’s voice trailed away. Such obvious need? I coughed.
“We were just resting.”
“Your companion looks like he might rest for the next dozen years.”
I looked over at Ebenezum. He had managed, somehow, to curl up on top of his boulder. His snoring grew louder.
“Just a short afternoon nap,” I replied, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice. How was I to wake the wizard up, short of kicking him?
“Well, perhaps you need a place to stay until his nap is completed?” Heemat waved to his left. “Our hovel is just down the road a bit.”
That’s it. Now I knew what was bothering me. I stroked my chin thoughtfully. “Indeed,” I remarked. “You say you are a hermit, sir.”
“That’s correct.”
“Well.” I coughed gently. “Since when do hermits have traveling companions?” I had to keep myself from smiling. What logic! My master would have been proud of me.
“I see.” Heemat’s hands retreated within his robes at the very hint of impropriety in his conduct. “I believe custom is somewhat different here than wherever you come from. I can tell you are a traveler.”
I was completely undone. “In this country, hermits travel in pairs?”
“Come, come. There’s no reason to belabor the obvious. How come you to this place?”
“Well, we seem to have wandered off the main road somewhere back there,” I admitted before I regained my composure. “A second! Why does your companion not speak? Has he taken a vow of silence as well?”
“Snarks, here?” Heemat laughed, the smile fully across his face again. “No, no, he’s never taken a vow in his life. He just doesn’t like to talk. Isn’t that right, Snarks?”
The other figure nodded and said something from deep within his folds of cloak. It sounded like “Mmrrpphh!”
Somehow, all these explanations were doing nothing to reassure me. “What did your friend say?” I demanded.
“Sounded like ‘mmrrpphh’ to me.” Heemat rubbed his belly happily.
There really was something all wrong here. I cursed my lack of experience. Maybe I should go over and shake Ebenezum awake.
With that, the wizard rolled off his boulder bed into a mass of brambles immediately behind the stone. His sleeping form sank from sight, but his snoring grew louder still.
“Our hovel is just down the road.” Heemat shrugged. “Of course, he could sleep in the brambles all night, if that is your preference.”
I looked from the hermit to his cloaked companion. Snarks waved his gloved hands above his head and shouted something like “Vrrmmpphh!”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
An attack from the rear! I spun about all too quickly, almost losing my balance in the process. So, after all this talk, they would finally make their move! These fiends were everywhere! If only I could discern the true nature of their hellish schemes. I knew magic now! I would fight them if I must, whether they numbered two or two hundred!
The newcomer was a good two feet taller than myself, dressed entirely in black. His shoulders were incredibly broad as well. You could have fit two normal men side by side and just matched the width of his frame. His face was pale and without amusement. He spoke in the deepest voice I had ever heard.
“I need some assistance.”
With that, a new earthquake hit. If the earlier quakes had been a giant stamping his foot, this one was the annual giant’s dancing social. We were, all but the tall man, tossed to the ground by the severity of it.
It was over in a second. I glanced at the boulders. Apparently, Ebenezum was still asleep.
A great, trumpeting cry came from the depth of the woods. The large man spun about with the grace one might expect of a dancer or a professional eel catcher.
A huge wild boar broke from the underbrush. The creature was larger than I was tall, with great, sharp tusks that seemed pointed straight in my direction. It bellowed again as it raced across the clearing, intent on its frenzied attack. My stout oak staff suddenly felt very puny in my hands.
The large man stepped in the wild boar’s path. The boar kept coming straight for him. The man in black grabbed the two tusks as if the huge pig were offering them rather than attacking. He calmly flipped the creature over as he stepped aside. Before the boar could recover, the large man had placed his immense hand around the pig’s equally huge neck and lifted the beast aloft. The boar roared, then made an odd, choking sound as the large man squeezed its windpipe. When the boar stopped struggling, the large man casually tossed it back into the woods.
“I do like strangling wild pigs,” he remarked. “It’s such a satisfying feeling.” He flexed his muscles absently.
Then again, perhaps fighting with this fellow wasn’t such a good idea. But I couldn’t run away, either, and leave Ebenezum snoring in the shrubbery.
“Indeed,” I said.
“Well, no matter,” the large man said. “I seem to have wandered off the main road somehow, and it will interfere with my duties.”
“Alas, another lost traveler!” Heemat exclaimed. “Perhaps we can be of service.”
“Who’s this?” the large man asked softly.
“Only Heemat, good sir.” Heemat spread his hands before him. “A poor hermit and religious pilgrim, pledged to Plaugg the Moderately Glorious. I have only recently broken a vow of silence to aid—“
“That’s enough.” The large man lifted a very large hand by his large head.
Heemat’s smiling mouth snapped shut.
“Who’s this?” The large man nodded toward the hermit’s cloaked companion.
“Wvvxxrrgghh.” Snarks took a rapid step to the rear.
“That is Snarks, sir,” I quickly interjected. “Hee-mat’s traveling companion.”
“Wait a second,” the large man said. “How can you be a hermit and have a traveling companion?”
Heemat’s well-clothed form grew rigid. “I will not be swayed by the narrow-minded dictates of society!” he cried.
“Very well.” The large man shrugged his incredibly broad shoulders. Heemat smiled apologetically.
“I am known as”—the large man made a sound like an elderly woman being bludgeoned to death by an unwilling snake—“although very few people can pronounce that. I am known, more simply, as the Dealer of Death.”
“Indeed,” I replied, recalling the great speed with which he had dispatched the rampaging pig. “And what can we do for you, Great Dealer of Death?”
“My friends call me the Dealer,” the Dealer replied. “I am on a sacred quest, to find and kill the enemy of my employer, King Urfoo the Vengeful.” Casually, the Dealer cracked his massive knuckles.
King Urfoo? A chill went down my spine as a certain clarity began returning to my head. My tired feet suddenly felt capable of running once again. King Urfoo?
“Ah, a sacred quest.” Heemat nodded his head knowingly.
“Bzzgllphfll,” Snarks added.
“Yes, I must find a certain wizard.”
“A wizard?” I inquired. The chill seemed to have spread across my entire rib cage. I was, at last, fully and most completely awake.
“Ebenezum is his name,” the Dealer remarked.
“Indeed?” My voice had suddenly become much higher. I thought it best to cease speaking altogether.
The Dealer of Death turned to the hermit and his companion. The muscles in the Dealer’s neck rippled as he spoke.
“You know of no one by that name?”
“Wsspklblgg,” Snarks mused.
“No, sir, we are not personally acquainted with the gentleman,” Heemat added as he backed away.
“Alas.” The Dealer sighed. His rib cage danced as the muscles contracted. “My quest must continue.”
A particularly loud snore came from amidst the brambles.
“What is that?” The Dealer looked about him, a grim smile playing about his lips. “Another wild pig that needs to be strangled?”
“No, sir!” I cried. “ ‘Twas nothing! Just a forest bird!”
Ebenezum moaned in his sleep, then snored again.
“You’re sure it’s not a pig?” the Dealer asked wistfully. “Sounds too deep for a bird. I do rather enjoy strangling pigs.”
We paused for a moment but heard nothing but birds and the rustling of small forest animals. Ebenezum was mercifully silent.
“Oh, well, I must get back to the main road, then.” The Dealer snatched a passing butterfly and ripped it in two. “Not as much fun as killing a pig,” he muttered.
Heemat gave the large man directions on how to regain the highway. The Dealer waved to us all and started back the way he came, his stride three times that of a normal person. My breathing began to return to normal.
“Well, Snarks.” Heemat waved to his companion. “Apparently no one wants our hospitality.”
“A minute!” I cried, turning away from the rapidly retreating Dealer. “I have reconsidered. We shall make use of your hospitality after all.”
“Ah, splendid!” Heemat clapped his hands to- gether. “You realize, of course, that there is a small fee involved.”
I nodded absently. I had made my decision at last, and I would not sway from it. Ebenezum was in no condition to travel, and though I still could not quite bring myself to trust the hermit, whatever his hovel offered had to be better than facing the Dealer of Death.
“I don’t imagine we can wake your friend.” Hee-mat nodded in the general direction of the brambles. “No matter. We’ll get him there. Of course, this entails a slight portage fee.”
I nodded again. With the Dealer of Death gone, I found my weariness was quickly returning. The three of us walked to the back of the stone.
“Come! We shall carry him!” Heemat and Snarks proceeded to disengage the wizard from the surrounding brambles.
There was a firm tap at my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” the Dealer of Death said, “but I seem to have gotten myself turned about completely. Oh! Here’s someone I haven’t seen before. Aren’t those wizard’s robes?”
Ebenezum woke up and sneezed.
“The common folk have many sayings, all about it being darkest before the dawn and clouds with silver linings and suchlike. We in the magical trade like to express our opinions of these matters somewhat differently. A lifetime of experience will have taught the average sorcerer that no matter how hopeless the situation seems, no matter how painful and fraught with danger his options may be, no matter how close he may be to an indescribably hideous death and perhaps even eternal damnation, still, the good wizard knows, it can always get far worse.
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume XLVI (General Introduction)
“Msstplckt!” Snarks cried.
“Gesundheit,” the Dealer added as the hermit’s companion ran away.
“Thank you.” Ebenezum blew his nose on his sleeve. “And whom do I have the honor of addressing?”
“This is the Dealer of Death, master,” I hastily interjected, “sent on a mission by one King Urfoo.”
“Indeed?” Ebenezum struggled up to a sitting position, pulling a dozen briers along with him. “Help me up, would you, Wuntvor?”
I did as I was asked.
“So you’re the Dealer of Death?” the wizard reiterated.
The Dealer made the woman-being-pummeled-at-some-length noise again. And Ebenezum repeated it.
The Dealer said he was impressed by my master’s facility. Ebenezum remarked that he had some small learning. Wasn’t the Dealer an acolyte of the respected “noise-rather-like-a-group-of-chickens-be-ing-attacked-by-a-dozen-rakes” sect?
The Dealer was overjoyed that Ebenezum had heard of his order and began to talk rapidly about his teachers, all of whom had names that sounded as if someone were being strangled and torn to shreds simultaneously. The relief I had felt at my master’s sudden recovery was once again turning to anxiety. I had very pointedly dropped Urfoo’s name into the conversation when I had introduced them. Still, it was quite possible that the wizard did not know the great degree of danger he was in. How could I warn Ebenezum without giving his identity away to the large killer he now spoke to?
“But enough of this cheerful gossip!” the Dealer cried. “I do not even know your name. What knowledgeable man am I now addressing?”
“My good sir,” Ebenezum said. I tugged violently at his sleeve. “Not now, Wuntvor, I’m talking. As I was saying, I am—“
The earth shook once again. The giants’ social dance had become a once-a-year gala festival. Even the Dealer fell this time.
There was a roaring in the woods. Eagerly, the Dealer of Death regained his footing.
A very large brown bear crashed through the undergrowth. The Dealer smiled. He raised a hand as if he would wave at the eight-foot-high, fear-crazed beast. The bear, sensing an easy target, rushed him.
His hand came down sharply on the bear’s skull as the beast approached. There was a sharp crack. The Dealer stepped back to avoid the bear’s still-swinging claws. The bear, now deceased, fell to the floor of the clearing.
“That’s quite impressive,” Ebenezum remarked.
“It was nothing,” replied the Dealer, wiping bear’s brains from his hand with a fallen leaf. “But when we were so rudely interrupted, you were introducing yourself?”
“Ah, yes.” Ebenezum smiled as he straightened his robes. The end was near. I held my breath as I waited to hear the wizard’s last words before his very speedy assassination. I wondered absently if his brains would be a different color from those of the bear.
“As I was saying,” the wizard continued, “I am unable to divulge that information at this time. Like you, sir, I am on a mission.”
The Dealer nodded his head. “I knew you were a kindred spirit all along.”
“We are all kindred spirits!” Heemat cried, waving his hands to include the whole group of us and perhaps the entire forest beyond. “That is why Snarks and I stumbled upon you, and began this whole remarkable chain of events.”
This was just too much. With the recent dramatic occurrences, I had almost forgotten the hermit and his cloaked companion. I began to say so when the wizard waved me to silence.
“We are quite assured of your importance,” Ebenezum remarked. “Isn’t it time you led us to your hovel?”
Heemat clapped his hands. “Of course! It’s a very nice hovel, you’ll see. Quite worth the pittance I ask for your stay.”
I was astonished that my master would trust these two strangers so completely.
“Wunt, gather up the packs,” my master instructed before I could say another word. In a lower voice, he remarked: “They are even more important than they think. And I do need my sleep.”
I glanced up at the Dealer as I reassembled our gear. He, in turn, had furrowed his muscular brow as he gazed at the late afternoon sky.
“I think I shall come along as well,” he remarked. “I do not care to be out alone after dark.”
“Good! Good! A full hovel is a happy hovel!” Heemat cried as he turned to lead the way.
Ebenezum waved Snarks away as the hooded figure approached. “Keep your distance, would you? That’s a good fellow. I need some space for proper contemplation.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve, then paused for me to come abreast. “It has been an interesting trip so far,” he whispered to me, “but I fear it will become far more interesting still, before the day is out.”
I nodded and continued to walk down the path after Heemat. I found myself not so much interested as thoroughly confused. I was glad that Ebenezum was once again alert and in control.
With that thought, I felt the earth shift beneath me again.
“Wsstppllkt!” Snarks cried as a fissure opened at my feet. I found my stout oak staff torn from my trembling hands as the small cloaked figure ran down the length of the crack in the earth, swiping at things that tried to rise from the dust-filled fissure. The things cried out as they were struck, inhuman squeals of outrage, guttural cries of anger and pain.
The earth shook again and the fissure closed. Snarks walked back over and handed me my staff.
“Vllmmpp!” he remarked.
“Anytime,” I replied, still somewhat shaken.
‘Most interesting,” Ebenezum mused behind me. “Just what I thought.”
With that, the procession resumed its march in the fading evening light, winding its way along the barely existing path to Heemat’s.
“All hail Plaugg, the Reasonably Grandiose!” Heemat intoned. “Welcome to my humble hovel.” He waved as two women dressed in forest garb passed us in the front hallway, then stopped abruptly as we reached a table, behind which stood a third man wearing a hermit’s cloak. Heemat studied the wall beyond the third hermit, then turned back to us.
“I’m afraid the only cells that I have to offer you are way over in the south wing. ‘Tis the busy season in the forest, after all. They’re quite nice accom- modations, mind you, just don’t get as much sun as those cells in the east and north. I’ll block your rooms all in a group, so you may continue your discussions!”
He turned back to the third hermit. “Maurice, see what you can do for our guests, won’t you?” He waved to all of us as he walked away. “Maurice will show you your rooms.” He coughed delicately as he passed through one of the surrounding doorways. “He will, of course, also make arrangements for payment.”
With that, he was gone. I noticed that Snarks had disappeared somewhere as well, so that only Eben-ezum, the Dealer, and myself stood before Maurice, a thin man with a mustache, who proceeded to read us rates from a large red ledger. The Dealer claimed to be without funds, as was the practice of his sect. Perhaps, I hoped wildly, we could be free of him at last. Ebenezum reached into one of the many folds in his wizardly robes and paid for all three of us.
I did my best not to show my dismay. The black-clad man followed us down the hall, idly squashing insects that here and there crawled along the walls. Was my master trying to kill us all?
“I am indebted to you,” the large man rumbled as Maurice opened the door to our suite of cells. The mustached hermit hovered behind us as we inspected our new quarters, as if he expected something more from us. A single, dark look from the Dealer sent Maurice on his way.
“Again,” the Dealer addressed Ebenezum, “thank you for your generosity. Most times my sect has little need for money. Gold, like all worldly things, would interfere with our art.”
By way of emphasis for the last remark, the Dealer leapt in the air, twisted about in a somersault, and landed facing us on the room’s far side.
“Very impressive.” The wizard stroked his beard. “Still, it might be better if you ceased your demonstrations until you were once again outside. I believe you have landed on the room’s only table.”
The Dealer looked down at the splinters that clustered about his feet. “Once again, I am in your debt. Most times, my sect has little need for furniture. Tables, like all wordly things, would interfere with our art.”
“Indeed,” Ebenezum replied. “But you pursue your art now, do you not, on a sacred mission?”
The Dealer kicked what remained of the table out of the way. “You are a man of understanding, sir. For I have signed a contract with King Urfoo to kill a wizard and his two traveling companions.” A grim smile lit the fellow’s broad and muscular face. “And when my sect signs a contract, the dividend is death.” He began to move his arm as if he might punch through the wall, then stopped himself.
“Excuse me,” he remarked. “I become overly enthusiastic when discussing my art.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Ebenezum said as he sat in a rough-hewn chair, the room’s only remaining piece of furniture. “But I am curious. How does one sign a death pact?”
The Dealer smiled gleefully. “One negotiates. You must be very clever. It is the final lesson of my sect.”
“Indeed. It must be difficult to negotiate with royalty.”
The Dealer nodded, still smiling.
“Especially with someone like Urfoo. I hear he is very tight with the purse strings.”
“He is a clever bargainer, no doubt about it. But we Dealers of Death are cleverer still. After I kill the wizard and his two assistants, one very young, the other very fat, I need only return to Urfoo and pay him ten pieces of gold!”
Both Ebenezum and I stared at the large man for a moment. So this was how Urfoo, stingiest of mon-archs, finally hired a qualified assassin!
“I was very clever,” the Dealer continued. “Originally, Urfoo only had me pay a single gold piece for each of the three I kill. But the job is worth far more than that!”
“Indeed,” Ebenezum said softly. “You are paying Urfoo so he can have you kill three persons?”
“Why, yes, those are the terms of the contract.” The Dealer’s well-muscled mouth turned downward. “Isn’t that the proper method? Do you mean ...”
He frowned deeply, then stamped his foot in frustration. The room shook. “Wouldn’t you just know it! It was almost graduation. Who would blame anyone for skimping a little on the final course of study? I did learn all the definitions, just had a little trouble with addition and subtraction. I pay him, he pays me, what does it matter? A contract is a contract. Negotiations interfere with my art!”
The Dealer punched his fist into the ceiling. His knuckles left indentations in the rock. “I find this place confining. I will return in time for dinner.”
With that, the large man was gone.
When I was sure the Dealer was well away from the room, I asked my master just what he was doing.
“There are many kinds of problems, Wuntvor,” Ebenezum intoned. “There are small ones that occur every day, and are easily dealt with. Then, there are the larger problems, that one must plan in order to conquer. Finally, there are a few problems so enormous that the only way to deal with them is to ignore them completely and go about your other business. Our friend the Dealer falls into this latter category.”
How could my master be so calm? “But shouldn’t we run away?”
“The minute we run, he will realize who we are. We are far safer as his friends. You see, I know even more about his sect than I discussed with the Dealer. They are commonly known as the Urracht.”
“TheUrracht?”
Ebenezum nodded. “The sound the victim makes after they see the assassin. The last sound they make.”
“Urracht,” I repeated. The word felt cold in my throat.
“Very efficient assassins, trained for years in the arts of death. Every effort is turned toward murder, so much effort, in fact, that there is little room in their lives for anything else.”
I pondered my master’s words.
“Do you mean they are somewhat deficient in wit?”
“Much as a large fern is deficient. Or perhaps a multifaceted piece of quartz. Every time they look for their feet, their shoes get in the way. In other words, yes. And as long as we act as a nonsuspicious pair, rather than the fugitive trio the Dealer is looking for, I imagine we will be quite safe.”
The room shook again.
“Then again,” Ebenezum remarked, “life is not so predictable as our assassin.”
I braced myself, waiting for the quake to come. But the room shook in a way different from the tremors we had felt for the past few days. The shocks came with a regular rhythm, as if someone were trying to pound through the walls. And there was a voice, crying something far away, a single word over and over again.
It took me a long moment to recognize that word, but once I did, I knew the voice as well.
Deep and sepulchral, it rang in my ears:
“Doom! Doom! Doom!”
“Nothing is quite so unexpected as the truth. If, for example, you find your spells inadequate to defeat the local dragon, immediately go to your employers and apologize profusely. They should be so taken aback by your show of humility that you will have plenty of time to hastily vacate the area, allowing the dragon to eat your employers rather than you, and thus halt any ugly rumors they might have spread about your competence. “
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume XXXIII
The wizard and I looked at each other for a long moment, the only sound the warrior’s distant, muffled cries. So Hendrek was lodging here as well! But what if Hendrek ran into the Dealer of Death? From our former dealings with Hendrek, we knew he was not a subtle man. And should the Dealer of Death see the three of us together . . . well, even the large Urracht assassin couldn’t be that stupid, could he?
“Doom!”
Ebenezum sighed, his eyes still half-shut with fatigue.
“Wuntvor,” he whispered. “See what can be done.”
I left the room as Ebenezum sat heavily on the bed. It was up to me, then, to find the large warrior and silence his cries.
“Doom!”
The word echoed down the corridor. I turned left, headed toward the sound.
“Doom!” I prayed the Dealer had by now found the forest and a brace of pigs to be strangled. Truly, Hendrek could not make his presence more well known if he had painted arrows along the corridor. He cried out again, and the sound reverberated against the walls. What would make the big man shout that way?
Demons, of course.
I slowed my headlong rush to meet the warrior. I had run into the midst of sorcerous dealings before. I did not wish to repeat my error. Perhaps stealth was called for here rather than haste.
A small, sickly-colored creature, dressed in a checkered suit, stepped in my path. It waved a cigar in my direction. It was Smilin’ Brax.
“Ah, we meet again,” the demon intoned from behind the broadest smile I had ever seen. “Never forget a potential customer. Rule number one of demonic commerce. And believe me, young sir, never have you needed the services of a charmed weapons dealer as you do now.”
The conviction in the demon’s voice chilled me. I temporarily forgot my quest to stare at the cheerful creature. What terrible secret could make Brax that happy?
“And you notice that I call my weapons charmed.” Brax took a puff on its cigar. “Because my previously owned weapons are truly charming. And you, good sir, are in luck! I’m overstocked! I’ve just received a huge inventory from a tribe of nature worshipers. I don’t know what came over me! I don’t have room for them in my warehouse. I’m almost giving weapons away!”
Hendrek’s voice echoed again from somewhere in the hermit’s massive hovel. Brax’s smile faltered for only an instant. The demon waved the cigar in my direction.
“You look like a young man of unusual intelligence,” the creature remarked. “And I’m about to make you an unusual offer. You won’t be sorry you listened to me. I see you carry a walking staff. Small stuff, I assure you. Have you ever thought really big? Why walk around with a puny branch, when you can own an entire magic tree?”
“Magic tr—“ I began.
“I see the idea appeals to you! Yes, just think of it, a magic tree, straight from the nature worshipers of the North. And just barely broken in, I can assure you, only used for an occasional human sacrifice, and those only on the solstices! Someday, young man, you will be a sorcerer. Just think of the amazing tactical advantages if you came to your sorcerous battles accompanied by a tree!”
“Doom!” The cry was far closer now.
“Yes, yes, of course, we also carry more conventional weapons,” Brax added hurriedly as he edged toward the middle of the hall. “Perhaps there is some question in your mind about obtaining something as large as a tree for your first mystical weapon. Although, may I assure you, the surprise value alone of such a weapon—“
Headbasher came flying down the hall.
“Urk!” the demon cried as it dodged the club. Hendrek followed his weapon at a run.
“Doom!” he cried as he spied us both.
“Friend Hendrek!” the demon replied in a somewhat less friendly voice than before. “I must protest your business practices! I have told you before, I will not accept a return of your enchanted weapon, no matter how forcefully”—the demon dodged Head-basher, now in Hendrek’s hands—“you attempt to thrust it upon me. A contract is a contract.”
Hendrek’s club crashed into the wall quite close to the demon’s head. I ducked as stone shards flew over me. I heard other voices in the distance, then the sound of running feet. Our little altercation seemed to be attracting some attention.
“Really, good Hendrek.” Brax spoke rapidly, dodging the warrior’s blows with even more dexterity than the last time I had seen them meet. “I am not unsympathetic to your plight. So you did not read the fine print on your contract.” The demon dashed between the warrior’s legs, temporarily freezing the large man. “A purely human error, nothing you should blame yourself for. But I, after all, am in the business of human error. And I urge you to pay your contract.”
Hendrek regained his bearings and spun on the small fiend in checkerboard garb.
“I have done all I can, yelp!” the demon cried as the weapon grazed his shoulder. “All I ask is that you depose a minor ruler or assassinate a fairly ineffectual high priest. That would be payment enough for now. if you continue to refuse, I’m afraid the matter will be out of my hands. I’!! be forced to send the Dread Collectors!”
Hendrek paused in his attack.
“The Dread Collectors?”
The demon nodded silently. “My hands are tied. There is nothing else I can do.”
“I didn’t know about the Dread Collectors,” Hendrek whispered. “Doom.”
The running footsteps grew closer. I glanced around to see Heemat and Snarks speeding toward us, their robes flapping with their haste.
“Yzzzgghhtt!” Snarks cried.
“You!” Brax replied, his smile replaced by a look of pure loathing.
“Doom!” Hendrek replied, once again raising his club above his head.
“Excuse me,” an even more sepulchral voice intoned by my side. I jumped involuntarily. Suddenly, the Dealer of Death had appeared silently in our midst. “Somehow, in trying to find the exit, I lost my way in this vast maze of hallways.” He glanced at Hendrek. “Ah! A fellow warrior!”
Club still over head, Hendrek regarded the newcomer with some suspicion.
“And what have we here!” Heemat jumped into our midst. “A large number of guests at my humble hovel, all engaged in social discourse!” He smiled at us all, his hands rubbing together fast enough to generate heat. “But I venture that few of you have yet experienced a number of the humble pleasures available at our little retreat. Have any of us visited the lower level yet today? No? Well, let me recommend our fabulous casino tavern, with entertainment nightly by the Hovellettes. And what of our tern- perature-controlled swimming pond—“
“Fellow warrior?” the Dealer of Death mused. “You wouldn’t happen to know someone named Hendrek, would you? About your size, from what I understand.”
With an unearthly shriek, Brax jumped upon the heavily cloaked Snarks.
“And have I mentioned our sun roof?” Heemat continued.
“Trrfblggllzz!”
“You have cost me too many sales, demon!” Brax screamed. “They were too kind to merely banish you from the Netherhells! Now I shall banish you from this world as well!”
“Excuse me,” the Dealer of Death murmured to Hendrek. “We should continue our conversation in a moment. It occurs to me that I haven’t strangled a demon in some months.”
Before I could see him move, his hand was around Brax’s throat.
“Urracht!” Brax cried. “That’s a very powerful grip you have there, sir.”
The Dealer smiled. “Prepare to meet your death, demon.”
“Have you considered how much more powerful you’d be with an enchanted weapon in that hand?”
The Dealer tightened his grip.
“Urk! Just asking! Easy credit terms!”
With a soft pop, the demon disappeared.
The Dealer grunted as his hand closed into a fist.
“That’s the trouble with demons,” he muttered. “You just get a good strangle started, and they disappear. No manners at all.”
“There, there!” Heemat beamed. “Nasty things, demons, but it’s gone now. Why don’t we retire to the Hovel Lounge, where we can play a quick game ofHovelo?”
. The Dealer flexed his fingers. “An awful feeling, losing something midstrangle. Makes you want to grab the nearest free creature and throttle him just so the effort isn’t wasted.”
“Hovelo is a fascinating game,” Heemat continued. “And so easy to play! A bean is placed in one of three identical cups ...”
He paused as the Dealer placed a hand on his shoulder.
“It takes a great effort of will not to strangle something,” the Dealer whispered. “I would appreciate some quiet.”
“Certainly!” Heemat’s hands flew back within his robes. “Snarks, we should go and prepare this evening’s entertainment.”
A voice even more muffled than before mumbled something from the corner of the hallway. The small hermit seemed to have become completely entangled in his robes during his battle with Brax. Head and feet were absolutely indistinguishable within the mass of torn fabric. Some part of him bumped repeatedly against the wall.
“Llffmm,” Snarks cried weakly.
“Doom,”Hendrek replied. “The little fellow may be suffocating! Quick. Help me free him from his robes.”
“No, no!” Heemat cried. “You don’t understand, his sacred vows...”
But his protests were too late, for the immense warrior and the Dealer of Death had rushed to either side of the fallen hermit and were pulling the small man’s clothes away in opposite directions.
There was a long, loud rip. Snarks’s head popped out of what had once been his clothing. His head was green and had a pair of horns, one above each ear.
“A demon!” the Dealer cried.
“Doom!” replied Hendrek.
“This is not what you think—“ Snarks the demon began. Hendrek’s club smashed into the pile of formerly occupied robes. The now naked Snarks was halfway down the hall.
The demon cleared this throat politely. “You’d do better, you know, if you anticipated your opponent’s movements before blindly striking.”
“Doom!” Hendrek cried even more loudly. He twirled the enchanted Headbasher above his head until the warclub sang.
“And you know,” Snarks continued as he ran, “you could stand to lose a little weight.”
“Doom!” Hendrek bellowed so loudly that I had to cover my ears. His immense bulk rushed the retreating demon.
“And do you mind if I ask you when the last time was that you managed to take a bath?”
Hendrek’s rage went beyond words. The demon disappeared around a bend in the corridor, the warrior in heavy pursuit.
“Our shame is known!” Heemat cried, wringing his robes with both hands. “Snarks is a demon, but he is a different demon. He could not help it! When he was a small demon-child, his mother was frightened to death by the promises of a group of politicians. You can imagine the damage done to his impressionable young mind. He became everything those demon politicians were not. Yes, friends, now Snarks is ruled by a great compulsion to tell nothing but the truth! The absolute truth, in great detail, and at great length, exploring every nuance that might occur to him, but the truth!”
“ Tis no wonder you keep him heavily cloaked.”
I looked up to see Ebenezum standing at the same bend in the corridor where Snarks and Hendrek had disappeared. The wizard blew his nose.
“Yes.” Heemat admitted sadly. “Praise Plaugg the Moderately Exhalted, sometimes Snarks was too much for even a humble hermit such as myself. Why, do you know that one time he said I should stop moving my hands ... and those things he inferred about my smile, and my haircut!” The hermit coughed softly. “Suffice it to say, heavy robes were preferable to a strangled throat.”
“That,” replied the Dealer of Death, “is a matter of opinion.”
Ebenezum yawned. “Now that the excitement is over, I think I shall return to my nap.” He glanced at Heemat, his great bushy eyebrows knitted in concern. “It is something of a trial to sleep in this place. I expect this to be reflected in our bill.”
The hermit waved his shaved head in dismay. “I assure you, this is most unusual! My hovel is usually the most quiet place imaginable, a combination of the best the forest has to offer with a few innovative ideas Snarks brought with him from the Netherhells! Together, they make a truly unique experience. Just wait for tonight and the entertainment!”
“I would like some entertainment now,” the Dealer whispered. “Could you show me the way to the forest?”
“Most assuredly! Follow me.” The hermit bustled down the corridor.
“I will feel better when I have strangled some- thing,” the Dealer remarked as he silently followed the huffing Heemat.
Ebenezum turned to me when they were gone. “Quickly, Wunt, you must seek out Hendrek and calm him before he squashes Snarks. A demon who tells only the truth could be very useful in the time to come.”
“Time to come?” I asked. “Do you mean Vushta?”
The wizard shook his head. “No. If we are ever to travel to Vushta, first we must survive this night.” He tugged at his beard. “Wuntvor, I must get my sleep. While my affliction prevents my practice of sorcery, my wizardly intuition is still intact. That intuition, as much as anything, has kept us alive during our travels. And that intuition tells me that we must prepare today, for tonight none of us here will have time to sleep at all. Now go find Hendrek!”
I ran down the corridor, listening for the warrior’s low cries and the boom of Headbasher hitting rock, rather than demons.
“It is a mistake to think of all demons as being exactly alike. Some are short while others are tall; some are yellow, others are blue; some are nasty and others are extremely nasty. Some of the nastiest are quite fast as well. Should you encounter one of these, it is a mistake to think at all. Much more appropriate are such responses as running, screaming, and the very rapid formulation of a last will and testament.”
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume IX
The noise was deafening. Three quick, thundering crashes, followed by a wild scream.
“Doo—doo—doo!”
I heard another voice talking quietly in the midst of all the chaos. As I ran toward the melee, I could make out phrases between the thuds and shouts.
“Really, if you just held that club ...””... time you rested, you’re getting rather . . .” “... a really good diet plan, even if it does come from the Netherhells...”
The crashing and screaming stopped. Again, I ceased my headlong run and peaked cautiously around the corner.
Hendrek sat in the hallway, his massive form propped against the far wall. His eyes stared through me, far beyond the limits of the hall.
“D-d-d-d-da,” he whispered.
Snarks frowned and shook his head at the inert warrior.
“Your friend has become distraught,” the demon remarked solemnly. “If he could have sat still and just heard me out, he might have realized I meant him no harm. But with these big fellows, it’s always attack, attack, attack! Soon they simply work themselves over the edge. Pity.”
Hendrek’s great bulk quivered like pudding. He collapsed upon the floor with a thunderous crash. I ran to his side. Mercifully, he appeared to have lost consciousness.
The large warrior began to snore.
“Persistent fellow, isn’t he?” Snarks brushed off his green-scaled arms. “Oh, if only he could see himself as others see him.”
I approached the small demon warily, my stout oak staff held close to my chest. “What do you want? “I asked.
The demon sighed. “What does anyone want? Someone to love, the respect of one’s peers, perhaps to achieve something special in one’s brief span. The first two, I fear, are now beyond my grasp. My extreme honor has caused me to be banished from among my fellows. You know, you don’t have to hold that staff of yours so tightly. I am no threat whatsoever. You weren’t so cautious of me when my face was hidden by hermit’s robes, were you?”
The demon was right. I relaxed my grip on the wood.
“And you know,” the demon continued, “you could manage to stand up a little straighter. It would do wonders for your overall appearance.”
I felt my fingers tighten again on my staff.
“Ah, there I go again, don’t I?” Snarks shook its head sadly. “It really is quite out of my control, you know. Not only am I a demon, I’m a cursed demon. It all seems rather redundant, doesn’t it?”
The demon turned, shaking its head sadly, and walked away down the hall. I took a step to follow, but the floor was no longer where I expected it to be.
When the tremor subsided, I picked myself up from where I had fallen. This new quake had been sharp and fast, and seemed to have left less damage than the last couple I had experienced. Still, it took me a moment to fully regain my balance.
Snarks waited patiently for me at the next bend in the hallway. The demon yawned.
“Of course,” it said, “I knew this would come as well.”
Before I could ask the demon just what it meant by that remark, it launched into a long and vivid description of my complexion and the various problems it perceived therein. Without thinking, my hands went to my face. I couldn’t look that bad, could I? I had a large red blotch where? There were certain remedies, the demon continued, poultices concocted in the Netherhells for conditions even as severe as mine. Why, Snarks had used one of the formulas very successfully. In just a few days it had completely shrunk the pus-filled hillocks that had marred his countenance, and it had had the unexpected additional benefit of turning his skin an attractive shade of green.
We had reached the door to Snarks’s cell at last. I wondered absently if there might be a large sack about somewhere that I might place over my head.
But I collected my thoughts as the demon clothed itself. There was far more at stake here than a few unsightly blemishes. I would take this far-too-honest creature to my master. Ebenezum would know what to do.
I told Snarks we must go see the wizard.
“Good!” it replied, “it is best if you are completely honest with me as well. An eye for an eye, as the old saying goes. But take it from one who knows: it is just amazing how the truth facilitates communication.” The demon adjusted its robes as it spoke. “Just a moment here, and I shall be rrddrrff gglmmphggl.”
The hood once again totally covered the demon’s face.
I grabbed a portion of the hooded demon that I took for an arm and pulled him from the room. The sooner we saw Ebenezum, the sooner I could forget my problem skin.
“Doooooooom.” A low moan came from the corridor where we had left Hendrek. Placing myself between him and Snarks, I approached the fallen warrior, who had managed to regain a sitting position.
“Doooom!” Hendrek fumbled for his enchanted warclub, but Headbasher was still beyond his enfeebled grasp. “A demon hermit! They are all around me! They haunt me wherever I go!”
“Kkssbrffmm!” Snarks replied.
Hendrek growled in response. I realized Heemat was right. By now, without Snarks’s muffling robes, the immense warrior would once again be in a rage.
“No, Hendrek,” I replied. “This demon is different. It was banished from the Netherhells. Now, like it or not, it is one of us.”
“Trrff,” added Snarks.
“Doom,” Hendrek said shortly. He retrieved his club at last and used it to help him stand. Even that exertion seemed almost too much for him. He swayed perilously for a moment on regaining his feet, but somehow his large boots remained on the floor. He made no move to attack but glowered in the demon’s direction.
“Doom,” he added again.
“I’m taking our friend here to the wizard. He’ll know what to do about this.” I grabbed Snarks and once again led the way. Hendrek nodded glumly and followed.
Snarks removed his hood for a moment. “I expected all this, you know.” One brief glance at Hendrek, and the hood was hastily back in place.
Feet ran rapidly down a side corridor. I turned to see Heemat approach.
“Praise Plaugg the Somewhat Omnipotent! The three of you together, walking as friends!”
“Doom!” Hendrek whispered to me. “These corridors seem a maze, and yet we encounter a new person every fifty paces. ‘Tis an enchanted place. I would not be surprised if I were to turn a corner and run into myself!”
Hendrek was right. I had felt a growing sense of uneasiness, too. For an establishment of this size, we seemed to be having random encounters impossible within the laws of chance. But then, Heemat had mentioned that some of this place had been built according to plans from the Netherhells.
“But we must plan tonight’s entertainment,” Heemat continued. “If our gracious guests could excuse Snarks now, he could give me some much needed assistance in the preparations.”
I was about to object when I smelted the sulfur.
“Doom!” Hendrek cried again, his warclub poised unsteadily over his head.
Brax stood in the hallway before us. The demon flicked a bit of cigar ash on the floor.
“Last chance, Hendrek.”
“Doom.” The warrior did not move.
“Very well,” Brax replied. “You shall meet the Dread Collectors.”
With that, the chessboard-costumed demon disappeared, and in its place stood something extremely large and incredibly ugly. It appeared to have at least nine heads of different shapes and sizes. All the heads, however, had very sharp looking teeth. Perhaps, it occurred to me, this thing was actually a “they.”
It, or they, scraped half a dozen feet equipped with razor claws along the floor, gouging rivulets in the hard-packed earth. The heads spoke as one.
“We have come to collect you,” they said. “Will you come quietly, or do we have to rend and tear?”
AH nine heads smiled as they finished the sentence. I had the sudden feeling that rending and tearing were two of their favorite forms of recreation.
“Doom!” Hendrek replied. “Before you rend and tear, you will feel the wrath of Head basher!”
The nine heads laughed as one. I did not find the sound cheerful in the least.
“Shall we?” one head, vaguely in the center of the monstrous mass, asked.
“After you,” the remaining heads replied. As one, nine demonic mouths opened and howled.
That howl was like nothing I had ever heard, the death cries of a hundred birds, or a thousand rodents screaming as they are crushed underfoot. The sound hit us like a wave from one of the Great Seas, pushing me back down the hall. I felt as if the wailing force would tear the flesh from my body and only leave the bones behind. I realized, in that instant, that the Collectors might have come for Hendrek, but they would take the rest of us as well.
The sound filled my head. All I could think of was the wailing. The things were coming for us, a blur of motion, all claws and teeth and long, sharp, razor things; tails, perhaps, or maybe something else that had no name.
I managed to lift my staff. Perhaps I could beat back a head or two before they overwhelmed me. I was aware of the others around me. Although the fiends rushed toward us, I felt that time had slowed, allowing me to regard each of my fellows in turn and ponder some on my life as well.
Hendrek, grim and silent, held his club at the ready. Snarks had pulled back its hood and was staring at the approaching demon-thing with a look of contempt. The evil eye, I thought. Maybe our honest demon would give the Dread Collectors indigestion. I did not see Heemat until Hendrek moved, revealing the hermit’s hiding place.
The howling rose in pitch. It would push my eyeballs straight back into their sockets. The things were almost on us now, their slavering jaws as wide as my staff was long. I prepared to strike.
Words carried over the howling, words punctuated by sneezing.
The shrieks of demon rage became shrieks of fear. The heads turned on each other, snapping and biting, scratching and clawing. A dark, foul-smelling liquid sprayed through the air. It was demon blood.
There was an explosion like thunder, just overhead. The Dread Collectors vanished.
“Doom,” Hendrek murmured.
The wizard sat at the far end of the corridor, his eyes closed, his breathing rapid. Ebenezum was still far from being at his best. But his magic had saved us again.
It occurred to me then that I might have been able to use sorcery against the Dread Collectors as well. I stared blankly at my stout oak staff. I was so used to confronting demons with brute force that my use of magic in a situation such as this never entered my head. True, I still only knew a few spells, and I imagined a rain of dead fish would have done little to slow the Collectors’ attack. Still, there might have been some other bit of magic I might have used, far more effective than the piece of wood I held in my hands. I would have to start thinking like a wizard.
Ebenezum groaned and slid farther onto the floor.
“Hendrek!” I called to the large warrior, who still stared blankly at the spot where the Dread Collectors had disappeared. “Help me get my master to his room. I fear Ebenezum still needs his rest.”
“Excuse me,” a voice said by my side.
I spun before I could think, my body still full of the fear brought by our recent demonic encounter. My staff held the full force of my weight behind it as it rammed into the Dealer’s shoulder.
The staff shattered as if it were made of glass. Splinters littered the floor. The Dealer of Death seemed not to notice.
“Excuse me,” he repeated. “I believe the time for proper introductions is in order. If our companions here”—he smiled graciously at the large warrior and the fallen wizard—“are Hendrek and Ebenezum, you, I imagine, must be named Wuntvor?”
I did not reply. My tongue felt like ice within my mouth.
“Come come, now,” the Dealer chided. “If we have to conduct business here, the least we can do is remain on friendly terms. You’ll find me a very reasonable man. I’ll give you a much more colorful death than you ever imagined. You’d be amazed at the large number of options available.”
Somehow, I didn’t find the Dealer’s reassurances at all comforting.
“There are, of course, the popular standards: strangulation, beheading, impalement, suffocation . . . You know, the classic deaths. But my cult features a large number of novelty murders as well. Take ‘The Troll and the Shepherdess,’ for instance. That’s a very popular number, let me tell you.”
Hendrek could take no more. His face, normally flushed, was now crimson with anger, in stark contrast to the paleness of his knuckles where they gripped the doomed warclub, Headbasher.
He rushed the Dealer in silence. Headbasher sought the assassin’s skull, but the Dealer deflected the club with a skiilful fist. There was a crash when club met fist, like stone against stone.
The Dealer winced and smiled as he blew on his hand. “Ah. A worthy opponent. I shall have my entertainment at last.”
“Doom,” was Hendrek’s sole reply as his club once again flew through the air. The Dealer deflected the new blow with an open palm, the sound of a small boulder falling on paving stone. The Dealer of Death lashed out with a foot aimed at Hendrek’s great armored stomach. The foot met Headbasher instead, which Hendrek had somehow twisted to protect his vitals. I heard the sound of a tree crashing in the forest.
The Dealer tried to distract the warrior with his fists, but wherever the assassin mounted an attack, Headbasher was there first. The club seemed almost a part of the large warrior’s arms, an extra joint that Hendrek could flex, giving him twice the power and speed of a normal man.
Or mayhap, I thought, the dub controlled the man. In my previous experience with the vast warrior, Hendrek had always had a tendency to lumber. Now, though, his great club flashing in his hands, parrying constant blows from the Dealer of Death, the huge man seemed to dance, pirouetting from one impossible defense to another unlikely attack, then back to defense again. With the club in his hands, the warrior himself appeared enchanted. The Dealer of Death was an extremely well trained assassin; but when he faced Hendrek, he faced magic.
The Dealer of Death seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, however. He would laugh with every blow of Headbasher, and his face was lit by a smile as innocent as a child’s.
“Urracht against enchantment!” he cried at last. “ Tis a fair game, ‘twould seem, but I fear it’s time to change the rules!”
He laughed, jumped to one side, landed on his hands, then sprang to his feet behind the large warrior. Hendrek spun to defend himself again, but the Dealer now stood over the unconscious Ebenezum.
“If I cannot kill the enchanted warrior,” the Dealer remarked, “I shall kill the enchanter instead. You have to be flexible in my profession.”
Hendrek raised his club threateningly.
“I do believe I can fend you off and kill someone else at the same time,” the Dealer continued. “In fact, I consider it a bit of a challenge.” He smiled down at the prone wizard.
Hendrek approached the Dealer of Death warily as the assassin knelt and placed a very large hand around my master’s neck. Both paused, however, to look my way as I began to flap my elbows and whistle “The Happy Woodcutter’s Song.”
Large quantities of haddock appeared some inches below the hallway’s vaulted ceiling. I had not lost my touch. Haddock, three-day-old dead haddock, rained on the Dealer, and Hendrek, and Ebenezum, and myself, and everywhere else the eye could see. Heemat and Snarks seemed to have disappeared. I realized I hadn’t seen them since our battle with the Collectors.
I had to act quickly, while the others were still surprised, and before the odor of massive fish death overcame us all. I slipped and slid my way through a mountain of scales, over to where I had last seen the wizard.
The Dealer was no longer there. He had apparently fled in a vain search for air. But I heard the wizard groan from somewhere deep within the odiferous mound. A warclub rose and fell on the other side of the hallway as Hendrek hacked a passageway through the amassed fish flesh.
“Quick, Hendrek!” I cried. “Help me get Ebene-zum to safety.”
Hendrek erupted from the haddock with volcanic force, his enchanted warclub held high.
“Doom!” he cried as I burrowed my way down through the haddock toward the buried Ebenezum. But soon he was at my side, and together we pulled the wizard free of the fish corpses.
“We’ll have to get him back to the room,” I grunted, taking his feet.
“Nay!” Hendrek replied vehemently. “We should quit this hellish place. That dark assassin is lurking about here somewhere. The sooner we are away from here, the safer.” He lifted up Ebenezum’s head and shoulders as I might pick up a piece of parchment, quickly and without effort. The warrior turned and led the way through the haddock.
Ebenezum groaned again and opened his eyes. When he spoke at last, his voice was a hoarse whisper.
“The Happy Woodcutter’s Song,” was all he said.
I nodded. “It’s all I could think to do in the circumstances.”
The wizard glanced at the floor. “Apparently, your efforts were successful.” He snuffled. “It is only at times like this that I am thankful for my malady.”
I had been doing my best not to think about the odor, bad enough when I first used the spell in an open field, but quite overpowering in this enclosed space. In fact, I had been doing my best not to breathe at all. If I did not get fresh air in a moment, the fish and I would be much closer.
“Look!” Hendrek cried. “A stairway!” The war- rior led us to a dark portico in the wall, which indeed led to a staircase that descended into further darkness.
Ebenezum insisted upon walking. So we set him down between us, keeping the large bulk of Hendrek in the lead. The darkness deepened as we went down, stairs worn smooth by years of use. I was forced to hold on to Ebenezum’s robes as he kept a hand against Hendrek’s armor-plated back. When at last we reached a landing, the darkness was total.
Hendrek bumped against something wooden and hollow-sounding.
“Doom! “he said.
A door was flung open before us. We were blinded by brilliant torchlight.
“At last!” I heard Heemat’s cheerful voice ring in my ears. “Our guests have arrived! Let the entertainment begin!”
“Casual amusement can be one of a wizard’s greatest problems. After all, when one can conjure virtually anything, what can one do to ‘get away from it all’?
“Different wizards arrive at different solutions for their entertainment. A sorcerer of my acquaintance decided to increase his physical prowess through a vigorous program of exercise but found that his new muscles were wont to rip his robes midconjure. Another mage decided to develop the interplay between tongue and teeth so that he could exactly reproduce any insect noise imaginable. He became so successful at this that they discovered his corpse one midsummer’s eve, suffocated by six thousand three hundred and two amorous katydids. And of the wizard who tried to start personal communications between humans and sheep . . . well, the less said the better.”
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume XLIV
One of Heemat’s many assistants led us to a table deep within this new room. The place seemed very large. Torches had been placed every twenty paces or so around three sides of the room’s perimeter, but little light reached the area we now traversed. The room seemed full of people, some hermits, others travelers like ourselves. I had never seen so many people in one place in my entire life. I found it made me almost as nervous as being surrounded by ghosts. My mind caught at a fleeting doubt: Would Vushta be like this? What if I were surrounded by five hundred people upon entering that city of a thousand forbidden delights? Even worse, what if I were surrounded by five hundred women, all young and beautiful, with long red hair cascading across their backs and shoulders, and all of them, every single one, making demands of me?
Well, I would bear it somehow, if only for my master.
“Your table, sirs.” Our hooded guide indicated three empty chairs to one side of a small, round table. A chair on the table’s far side was occupied. Even in the almost nonexistent illumination, the seated man’s size and stature told me at once who he was. We had found the Dealer of Death.
“Doom,” Hendrek rumbled.
Heemat bustled over in our direction. “My most honored guests!” he cried, rubbing his stomach happily. “You are among the very privileged few to witness the full, true, and historically accurate saga of Plaugg the Adequately Overwhelming, related through an inspired mesh of dramatic reenactment, dancing, and song! And at the same time and for only a negligible fee, you’ll be able to sample the first sacrament of our order. Pastry!” Heemat patted his stomach for emphasis as another hermit wheeled over a cart laden with cakes, pies, and cookies.
Heemat bowed, then shuffled away. “Make your choices quickly. Soon, you will be entertained!”
My eyes were becoming accustomed to the light, so dim after our confrontation with the torches at the entrance. I could see the Dealer smile. He nodded in my direction.
“I shall be entertained,” he said.
But before he could speak further, there was a crash of cymbals, and a pair of heavy drapes parted before our table. Seven figures stood before us, all covered completely by monastic robes. Jaunty music began somewhere. The seven figures formed a line and started to kick. From the shapes of their legs I guessed the seven were female. Their singing voices confirmed my supposition:
“Seven happy hermits are we, A nd we hope you all will see, You ‘ve been brought here by the hand of fate To hear about Plaugg the Moderately Great!”
Ebenezum leaned over and tapped the Dealer on the shoulder. “Might we discuss the terms of your contract for a moment?”
The assassin’s smile disappeared. “I would rather not. I’ve become a bit sensitive about the matter. I only neglected one course of study, after all!”
“Indeed,” the wizard hastily interjected. “I by no means wish to criticize. Actually, should you think on it, a talk might be to your benefit as well. Your vocation is artful death. Consider how much more
1% satisfying a murder might be if it followed a truly satisfying discussion.”
The Dealer nodded his head slowly. “ Tis true a good discussion might help to round my character. I have neglected things for my art.”
Ebenezum stroked his beard and smiled. “Indeed. I knew you were a man of reason. I might humbly add that I am a man of some learning, and a discussion with me might help bring out some nuances of thought to aid you in your work.”
The Dealer leaned toward the wizard, his gaze intent upon the mage. Ebenezum, for his part, stroked his beard absently, as if lost in deep and sorcerous conjecture. I turned back to the stage. The dancers and singers had vanished, replaced by an old monk who read from a great book:
“And lo, the masses turned unto Plaugg and entreated him to help them in their hour of need. And Plaugg heard them, for his throne was not so great or not so high as to escape the voice of the masses, and was made of second-rate materials besides, studded with elaborate baubles made of adequate cut glass. And Plaugg looked down upon the throng, and speaketh. And lo, he sayeth unto them: ‘Not today. I do not feel up to it.’ “
“Pray tell,” Ebenezum said to the Dealer, “in your current contract, is there a time limit on the delivery of our deaths?”
The Dealer’s eyes narrowed. “That is private information. A contract is a sacred ...” He paused. “Well, perhaps not this contract. No such limit was stipulated.”
“Good!” Ebenezum beamed. “We will have time for a really detailed discussion.”
The Dealer relaxed. “Yes, perhaps we shall. I have slighted myself in some areas of study. A few hours of discussion could do no harm.”
“Indeed!” Ebenezum removed his cap and placed it on the table. “Then ‘tis time to get down to business. We are very lucky we met, you and I. I am quite skilled in the art of discussion; ask either of my compatriots. We can cover many of the areas neglected in your education. If you’ll just give me a day or two to prepare, I’m sure I can devise a truly rewarding course of study. Then, in a few months, only weeks, really, you shall become a fully rounded individual!”
The Dealer stared long and hard at the wizard. A new group of singers and dancers had moved on the platform before us. They were doing a strange dance that seemed to consist of jumping wildly about for a few seconds, then sitting absolutely motionless for minutes at a time. One of the singers, off to the side, exhorted the others to “do the Plaugg.” The crowd around us seemed quite taken with the performance.
“Your suggestion has a certain merit,” the Dealer murmured, so low as to be almost lost in the crowd noise. “I shall think.”
“But you haven’t had any pastry!” Heemat had once again appeared tableside, rolling a cart laden with frosted edibles. “You do not want to offend Plaugg, praise his somewhat exalted name!” The hermit heaped pastries before Ebenezum, then moved on to do the same for the glowering Hendrek. “For it has been spoken that Plaugg has a moderately hideous wrath.” He quickly ate something small and gooey, then moved on to fill the space before the Dealer. “Of course, no one has ever actually witnessed Plaugg’s wrath, praise his fairly magnificent name. But there have been some very strong rumors about what might happen if we were to finally get him mad.”
Heemat moved on to me. “It has been written that in a time of moderate crisis, Plaugg shall return. But what am I saying? You’ve been watching our dramatic presentation. You probably know more about Plaugg now, praise his reasonable significance, than I do!”
He chuckled to himself about his little joke. I, for one, had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. The performers before us had jumped about and sung a great deal, but there seemed to be no dramatic unity at all to what I’d seen. Of course, my mind had not been entirely on the players. I was somewhat more concerned with the drama that transpired at our small table: the Dealer still lost in thought over my master’s proposal; Hendrek munching sullenly at some long, narrow sugar-thing; my master smiling and convivial, casually watching the not-yet-paid assassin’s every move.
The Dealer’s eyes bored into the layer cake before him. “I have thought,” he said after a moment’s pause, “and I have decided to accept your offer.”
Ebenezum nodded solemnly, no hint on his features that he had just been granted a reprieve from death. I couldn’t believe it! The Dealer of Death had accepted the wizard’s offer! If my master could talk the Dealer into delaying assassination now, he could surely talk the Dealer out of killing us altogether in a few short days. I vowed never to distrust my master again. I wanted to jump up and down and shout. Still, that would not be businesslike. I filled my mouth with a frosted cupcake instead.
“You are a man of learning, and subtle powers of speech,” the Dealer continued to my master. “You are correct. I must become flexible if I am to improve myself, both within and without my craft.”
“Bravo!” my master intoned. “We will immediately begin—“
The Dealer held up his hand for silence. “Unfortunately, you are the only person included in this bargain. Your apprentice and the warrior will, of course, be killed immediately.”
My half-eaten cupcake jumped in my throat. I tried to cough and swallow at the same time. Hen-drek rose to his feet in a rush, the doomed Head-basher scattering delicacies before it as it skidded across the table. The Dealer yelped in surprise as he was assaulted by a sugar-filled deluge. He managed to dodge all but a single cherry pie.
The assassin wiped sticky red from his eyes. “Two can play at this, warrior,” he whispered.
“Doom,” Hendrek replied.
“Hendrek, wait!” I cried as I saw the immense man once again raise his warclub. I had had a revelation as the pie hit the Dealer’s face. Hendrek could do no better than hold the assassin at bay with his enchanted warclub. But if we were to work together, using the wizard’s wits and my beginning spells, we could break through the Dealer’s defenses, as the pie, aided by a rain of pastry, had found its mark.
But my master was lost within his robes, hiding from the effects of the enchanted warclub, and Hendrek was full of battle lust and was beyond listening. The warrior dodged a chocolate cake lobbed easily across the table. But the Dealer had only thrown the cake as a decoy, for his right hand held three large, cream-filled eclairs, which shot across the table with deadly force. Yet club was faster than pastry, and I found a targe, sodden chocolate mass deflected into my face.
“Gack!” I cried, quite beside myself. Bits of cupcake still lined my throat, and now icing obscured my vision. I expected the hands of the Dealer to descend on me at any moment and tear me into a dozen frosted pieces.
“Blasphemy!” Heemat’s voice cut through my panic like a knife dividing a pie intersections. What could happen next? Expectant, I licked the remains of a missile from about my mouth, then wiped away enough cream filling to see.
Heemat stood before a huge crowd, all wearing the same monastic robes. There must have been a hundred hermits gathered there, all staring at the Dealer and myself. Maybe our commotion had interrupted the play.
I was relieved that whatever had occurred, the Dealer had temporarily ceased his attack. However, looking at the grim jaws and cold eyes of the assembled hermits, I had the feeling that what happened next might not be a marked improvement over recent events-
“Blasphemers!” Heemat repeated, his eyes darting back and forth between the Dealer and myself. “In your folly, you have sinned. You have taken what must be eaten, and used it for false purposes. Heathen interlopers, you have profaned the pastry!”
“Profaned the pastry,” chanted the crowd of monks behind Heemat.
Heemat shook his head sadly, his eyes looking to the ceiling. “Sometimes I forget.” His voice was a hoarse whisper, choked with emotion. “Sometimes my expansive nature gets the better of me. I ask people to be my guests, and share my custom!”
“Share our custom!” the chorus replied.
“And what do you do to thank me for all this?” Heemat waved his arms wildly above his head. “I, who have taken a twenty-year vow of silence, but feel such a compulsion to be friendly to the likes of you that I have managed to fulfill only six weeks of my pledge? Yes, yes, you! We invite you into our homes, give you the very best our humble order has to offer, and you—you—you stamp on the very name of Plaugg the Conservatively Overwhelming!”
“Conservatively Overwhelming,” repeated the others.
“Indeed,” Ebenezum said, stepping between me and the hermit horde. “I am sure we are all very sorry for departing from established custom among your sect. But we are new here, and perhaps a bit shaky as to the finer points of local tradition. I myself am recovering from a long, severe illness, and must spend much of my time sleeping. The large warrior at my side is possessed by a cursed warclub, and cannot be held responsible for his actions. And what of my apprentice? He is but a youth, and has not yet reached his majority. Surely you cannot blame him for a childish prank or two? We are, all three, quite innocent of malice.” He coughed gently into his palm. “As to the gentleman in black ... well, he will have to speak for himself.”
The Dealer’s eyes blazed at Ebenezum. “You would so lightly end our agreement, then? Well, my answer is this!” He reached behind him to grab an immense kuchen that covered the entire pastry cart.
The crowd of hermits gasped as one. Apricot fill- ing oozed through the Dealer’s fingers.
“No!” Heemat cried. “I will have no more of this! Take them!”
In an instant, a dozen monks swarmed over the Dealer. Another instant and the crowd had broken past Ebenezum. Monks surrounded me. I found my arms pinioned behind me, the Dealer similarly trussed at my side. Heemat stood before us both.
“Now listen, blasphemers, and I shall tell you of Plaugg’s judgment, praise his reasonably enormous name!”
“Reasonably enormous name,” the crowd replied.
“We are a strict sect, but we are fair,” Heemat continued. “Before you are put to death, we will give you a trial, and it is possible that through this trial you may be redeemed. We have three trials within our sect. The first is trial by water.”
“Trial by water,” they all chimed in.
“Unfortunately, being in the middle of the woods, we are rather lacking in moats, lakes, and other bodies of water suitable for the task.”
“Suitable for the task,” the others said.
Heemat rubbed his hands together. “And then, of course, there’s that traditional favorite, trial by fire.”
“Trial by fire,” the hermits echoed.
“Unfortunately, we have discovered a side effect of this trial. Often, the fire gets a bit out of hand, and we find our hovel burning down as well.”
“Burning down as well,” the hundred chanted.
“How much better, then, our third form of judgment. And how much truer to the central spirit of the minor deity that we worship: Plaugg, bless his insubstantial glory!”
“Insubstantial glory!” they parroted.
Heemat leaned so close to me that I could smell his sugar-tainted breath. “Now, interlopers, you shall see the truth. Now, you shall have to face—trial by custard!”
“Trial by custard!” everyone cried.
I was grabbed by two dozen hands and bustled through the curtains onto the stage. My last sight of the room was Ebenezum waving to me. They had not taken him or Hendrek; perhaps, I guessed, because neither of them were covered with pastry.
But Ebenezum was free! That meant he could help me! Didn’t it?
I was carried into darkness.
“Religion is a personal matter, and those of us in the sorcerous profession would do well to steer clear of it. Still, you will find some situations, say a spell accidentally demolishing someone’s holy temple, where you will be given the choice of (one) conversion to their belief, or (two) being sacrificed to their deity. It is only at times like this when one realizes the true depth and beauty of religions, at least until one can find some way out of town.”
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume XXXI
They had bound my hands and feet and left me in the dark. After some time had passed, the door to my cell opened and a lone hermit bearing a candle entered. He silently closed the thick door behind him, then approached the bed on which I lay. He placed the candle on the room’s only table, then used both hands to remove his voluminous hood.
It was Snarks.
The hooded demon motioned me to silence. “I should not be here,” it whispered, “but somehow I have taken a liking to you. You seem like one of those rare mortals who can be trusted. Perhaps it’s your awkward manner and bumbling gait that endears you to me, or the fact that your hair is never properly combed, or the way you misbutton your shirt, or those complexion problems we discussed—but no matter. Whatever it is, you have touched my demon heart. I have decided to help.”
I studied Snarks in the dim light. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or scared out of my mind. Just what came out of a demon heart, anyway?
“Soon,” Snarks continued, “the performance will be over in the Great Hall, and it will be time for your trial. Your blasphemy was a lucky break for Heemat, let me tell you. It gives him a much better climax for his evening’s entertainment. Before that, all he had planned was another of those big musical numbers. You know: ‘Listen to the dancing feet, praising Plaugg the Kind of Neat!’ That sort of thing.”
I nodded somewhat warily. Thus far, Snarks was not improving my outlook. I wondered if I should call the guards.
“But trial by custard!” the demon exclaimed. “It can be a terrible ordeal if you are unprepared. You and the other blasphemer will each be lowered into one of two vats of custard, each two feet higher than the top of your head. What happens next . . . well, suffocation by custard is a hideous death!”
The demon shivered. “There is only one escape. You must lift your head and eat your way to the surface! I have used my influence to have you dropped into the lemon-filled vat. It is somewhat lighter and less filling than the butterscotch. Once you have a hole to the surface, simply untie your hands and feet, and swim to the doorway at the vat’s side. Then you will not only have survived trial by custard, but—“
There was a shuffling noise in the hallway, as if some great weight were being dragged across the cobblestones.
“The other blasphemer is being taken to the Great Hall. I must go. I cannot be seen here!” The demon swallowed hard. “I have no appetite for custard.”
Snarks replaced its hood and moved to the door, opening it a crack. The demon looked both ways, turned to me, and waved.
“Grrffmmj!” it called. Then the demon was gone.
Eat my way to the surface? Untie my hands and feet? Snark’s words spun through my mind. I had had no idea of the true nature of my ordeal until—
The door to my cell was flung open with such force that it smashed against the wall.
“Now, blasphemer!” Heemat’s voice cried, high and full of rage.
And the room began to shake. It was a good quake this time, solid and deep, with a large amount of booming, crashing, and frightened voices in the background. One of the best ones we’d had, actually. I gave it eight out of ten. I wondered absently, tied up on the slab, when I had begun to rate these disturbances.
Heemat picked himself up from the floor when the quakes had finished. He brushed perfunctorily at his robes.
“As I was saying: Now, blasphemer! We will see just what you are made of! Guards, take him away!”
Four burly hermits rushed into the room and lifted me from my pallet. I imagined, in a few short minutes, that I should be made largely of custard.
“Let the trial begin!”
The curtains opened before us. I stood on a high platform, hands and feet tied, a burly hermit guard on either side. A few paces away, the Dealer of Death stood on a similar platform. The ropes around the Dealer appeared somewhat thicker than mine and covered his body in great loops from his chest to his ankles. A dozen burly hermits crowded to either side of him. Between the platforms were two iron vats, each large enough to contain three men. The one closer to me was filled with a quivering bright yellow. The contents of the other were more of a light brown.
The roar of the crowd drew my attention away from the vats. The curtains were open now, revealing an audience that filled the Great Hall.
Was this the room that I had sat in mere moments before? It looked different from my new vantage point, high above the crowd. It was still quite the largest enclosed space I had ever seen, mind you, but from where I stood now, it was definitely just a room, bordered by well-defined, torchlit walls, rather than the limitless vista it had felt like before. And as many people as there were down there, they seemed very small from my platform vantage. For a brief moment, I felt above them, removed.
And then I realized they were all here to see me. Me and the Dealer of Death. We were the attractions here, hundreds of people studying our faces, looking for signs of fear or guilt or even holy reassurance. I knew, somehow, far away, that perhaps I should be
! afraid I was, after all, to be dumped into a vat of custard at any moment, and a part of me, deep inside, was screaming in a very tiny voice.
But they had me bound and guarded. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide. And the audience was out there—for me.
They all applauded. It felt wonderful. No more helpmate to the great Ebenezum. I was the center of attention now.
Would it be like this when I was a full-fledged wizard?
I bowed stiffly and lost my balance. Guards grabbed me from the rear, hauling me back from a premature meeting with the custard.
I looked up. The audience was silent. My near accident had caused the assembled masses to gasp as one.
Then, out of the silence came a lone voice, whistling “The Happy Woodcutter’s Song.”
I looked down to see Ebenezum and Hendrek, seated at the same table the Dealer and I had been spirited away from such a short time ago. Hendrek glowered at the crowd around him and played with the pouch that held the doomed club, Headbasher. Ebenezum shook his head firmly, then pointed to me. I nodded to him, and he touched his whistling mouth.
Did he wish me to whistle as well? Then again, what did I have to lose? If I was about to die in a vat of custard, there were worse ways to go out than whistling.
I began to whistle “The Happy Woodcutter’s Song” as well. Ebenezum nodded enthusiastically. So he did want me to whistle!
The wizard had a plan.
Heemat glared at my master, but Ebenezum had stopped whistling and now seemed content to flap his elbows.
“O Plaugg, who may be among the Great Ones above, or may not, please hear our plea. These two you see before you have blasphemed your name in the midst of our most relatively holy ceremony. So we have brought them to trial before you now, and beseech you to aid us in judging them with your adequate wisdom!”
I noticed that Heemat was staring at me rather fixedly. Perhaps it was because I had whistled. “The Happy Woodcutter’s Song” during the entirety of his oration.
Heemat clapped his hands.
“Into the vats!”
Strong arms pushed me into the yellow po6l. I barely had time for one quick breath before the sticky mass engulfed me.
I had closed my eyes when my feet hit, but my nose told me I had sunk into the mire. A strong scent of lemon, and then I could no longer breathe at all. I floated for an instant within the thick custard, my hands and feet tied, totally helpless. I fought down a rising panic and tried to remember what Snarks had bade me do. My feet hit the bottom of the vat, and I lifted my head toward the heavens, knowing I must eat now as I had never eaten before.
I opened my mouth, and custard poured in, too much, too fast! I forced my teeth closed, doing my best not to choke, and then, with an effort of will, swallowed. There. That wasn’t too bad. Quite tasty, really.
It was just that there was so much more to go.
But I would not panic. I would persevere, for my master, and my future as a wizard, and for Vushta, the city of a thousand forbidden delights. So I ate again, quickly, efficiently, aware that every bite I took might be my last.
For my master! I thought. Ebenezum would be proud of the way I forcefully ate my custard.
For my future! How noble of character a wizard would be if he overcame a challenge like this in his youth. I swallowed a second mouthful, and then a third.
For Vushta! Dear, forbidden Vushta. Surviving an ordeal like this would only make me more prepared for that great city where a single glance might mark a man for life. I opened my mouth wide and let the custard pour.
My teeth closed on air. Air! I swallowed quickly and began to breathe. Air! Sweeter than all the lemon custard in the world! I laughed and began to whistle “The Happy Woodcutter’s Song.”
But something covered my mouth again. Had the custard shifted? My panic returned. I opened my eyes to see insect feelers waving above my nose.
It was a butterfly.
There was a crash as the vat, burdened with me, hundreds of gallons of custard, and thousands, perhaps millions, of butterflies, could no longer support the weight. I found myself floating off the stage on a river of custard.
Snarks called from the platform overhead:
“He has survived the trial by custard!”
“But—“ Heemat began, rather flustered. “He can’t—“ He rubbed his bald head and smiled. “I suppose he can.”
Hendrek waded into the yellow torrent and grabbed me before I could be swept beyond the wizard’s table. He placed me on a seat above the now dwindling custard tide. Ebenezum, of course, was still sneezing.
When my master composed himself, I thanked him for not using the haddock spell.
Ebenezum nodded happily. “Butterflies were all that was needed. And it was better that I saved you without alienating our hosts. Undo Wuntvor’s bonds, would you, Hendrek?”
The large warrior did as he was asked. In the meantime, Ebenezum went on to explain what a great thing it was that we had accomplished—collaborative magic. I had whistled, he had flapped and wriggled, and the magic had still occurred. That was important, since in flapping and wriggling, he wasn’t doing anything sorcerous. Thus, the magical implications did not affect his malady until the spell was already successfully completed, whereas if he had tried to accomplish the entire spell himself, he would have collapsed in a sneezing fit halfway through the song.
“So you see what this means?” Ebenezum concluded. “Whole vistas of magic are open to me again. Together, Wuntvor, we might even find a cure!”
A cure? This was all too much. First, almost drowning in a vat of custard, and now this! I pictured myself fated to return to Wizard’s Woods without the slightest chance of seeing Vushta for years to come.
Ebenezum was much too excited to notice my mood. “And it was never so important as now to muster our magical resources. While you were preparing for your ordeal, I have had discussions with Hendrek. His demonic tormentors were able to locate him much too quickly after our escape from Urfoo.”
“Doom,” Hendrek added.
“Which fits the pattern we began to see on our journey to Vushta. Wuntvor, there are far too many demons loose in the world. Something new is coming from the Netherhells. And now, Wuntvor, that certain inconveniences are out of the way”—he nodded to the stage and the still-upright vat of butterscotch custard—“we can find out just what that something is.”
In my relief at being alive, I had quite forgotten what was still transpiring on the stage. By now, the live butterflies had all flown out among the audience, and they had swept the dead butterflies, custard, and broken bits of vat away.
Heemat stood, arms outstretched, on one of the platforms. His eyes surveyed the audience. He cleared his throat.
The remaining vat tipped over sideways, and the Dealer of Death tumbled out. The vat rolled about so that its innards faced the audience. There was no custard left in there at ail. The iron sides had been licked clean.
The Dealer burped.
“Certain inconveniences appear to have returned,” Ebenezum remarked. He tugged at his beard thoughtfully. “But perhaps it will take him a few minutes to digest. We must talk to Snarks, and quickly. He has knowledge of the Netherhells that is important to our guest and, yes, may be important to our very lives.”
The Dealer groaned and tried to stand. His stomach appeared somewhat larger than it had before. Heemat ran back and forth across the upper platform, his hands rubbing together so fast that I expected to see sparks.
“Two have passed!” he cried. “Two! Two! Never in the history of the worship of Plaugg, bless his mundane magnificence, have two survived the trial! We must—we must—It is time for a conference!”
A heavily cowled figure scooted past our table. Hendrek grabbed his hood as Ebenezum held his wizardly nose. The doomed warrior had been correct in his assumption. It was Snarks.
“Good Snarks!” Ebenezum managed, doing his best not to sneeze. “We must speak—we must—spec—sp—“ He quickly grabbed his cap and sneezed therein. “Pardon. Something is happening with the Nether—with the Ne—Ne—N—“ Three sneezes this time, in rapid succession. Ebenezum held his cap at arm’s length with some distaste. “Snarks, you mu—mus—Drat! Wuntvor! ‘Tis up to you!”
The wizard fell beneath the table, lost in a sneezing fit.
“Indeed,” I began. What should I ask this all-too-honest demon? I wanted to make my master proud! But there wasn’t much time. Already the Dealer of Death was leaping about the stage, involved in a complex series of calisthenics designed, I was sure, to aid digestion and free custard-stiffened muscles.
“Indeed,” I said again. “I believe you come from the Netherhells?”
“No, no, no,” Snarks replied. “Actually, you know for a fact that I come from the Netherhells. You should think more before you speak, you know. Inexact language, inappropriate questions. Sometimes I don’t know how you humans make it from day today.”
“Snarks!” I cried, a bit more loudly than perhaps I should. I would not be upset by his demon tongue.
“We have reason to believe there’s a plot afoot in the Netherhells!”
“And good reason it is, too,” Snarks replied. “There are always plots afoot in the Netherhells. It’s part of the charm of the place. But I imagine, in your bumbling way, you’re asking me if there’s one particular plot, a large, dangerous plot, perhaps, that could threaten all of humankind. Is that what you want to ask of me?”
I nodded my head. Perhaps it was best not to speak at all and just let the demon talk.
“Well, the answer is yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for the conference.”
“Doom!” Hendrek remarked as Snarks leapt up onstage. Ebenezum blew his nose.
Heemat had already turned away from the huddled monks and once again began to address the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow believers, and our guests. Never in the history of Plauggdom has such a modestly blessed event as this occurred. Two in our midst have been tested, and found reasonably worthy. Even Plaugg himself, bless his marginal magnificence, must be looking down from his moderate height and—“
A small gray storm cloud appeared over Heemat’s head, the kind that meant a moment’s rain before it disappeared. Heemat paused midsentence to gape as the cloud took on the shape of a man, wearing rumpled gray robes and a distracted expression. The disheveled floating man squinted out into the audience.
“Pardon me,” he muttered in a timorous voice. “I’m not so sure I should be here.”
Heemat, his fellows on the stage, and all the hermit-monks in the audience had fallen to their knees. The assemblage looked to the rumpled man overhead and spoke with one voice. “Plaugg!”
“So you think you know great, nail-biting excitement, you think you know truly abject fear, you think you know total and complete despair, you think you know the incredibly degenerate underside of this world we live in, and the ridiculously despicable lengths that your fellow man can sink to, more rotten, more putrid than the lowest form of fungus. . . . Oh. You are a sorcerer as well. Then perhaps you do.”
FURTHER CONVERSATIONS WITH EBENEZUM, Volume III
“Oh, maybe I’m a little early,” Plaugg said, seemingly to himself. “Yes, of course, that must be it. I’m early!”
Ebenezum watched the minor deity with some trepidation. Once again, the wizard held his nose.
“Oh, come now, come now,” Plaugg said, singling the wizard out. “I won’t let you sneeze around me. It’s the least I can do.”
The wizard looked up at the gray, rumpled deity. He breathed in and out without ill effect. “Do you mean to say,” the wizard said cautiously, “that you have the power to cure my affliction?”
“Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it?” Plaugg clasped his hands together. “Not exactly, no. We minor deities can only do so much, you know. Unfortunately, I can only cure your affliction with regard to myself.”
“Oh.” Ebenezum frowned. “Pity.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” Plaugg agreed. “It’s one of the problems with being a minor deity. You only get so much power, and oh, the responsibility that comes with it! You could hardly imagine. Always having to please the faithful. After all, what do you imagine I’m doing here now? Although come to think of it, that hasn’t happened yet, has it?”
“O reasonably beneficent Plaugg!” Heemat cried from the platform.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be with you in a moment,” the minor deity remarked. “As soon as I finish talking with this gentleman here. You wouldn’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve had a good talk. It’s one of the problems with my profession, I’m afraid. You get a lot of worship in my position, but very little good conversation.”
Ebenezum nodded. “What would you like to talk about? You wouldn’t want to tell us why you’re here?”
“Oh, that.” Plaugg sighed. “Duty. I do sometimes get tired of all that. Being a minor deity is really more trouble than it’s worth. Your worshipers never look you in the eye, and should you even attempt to speak to them, they start sacrificing things to you. Sacrifices and more sacrifices, at the drop of a hat.
Now I ask you, what use have I got for a dead goat?”
“Plaugg, do you demand a sacrifice?” Heemat queried.
“See what I mean?” The deity frowned. “Oh. Don’t get me wrong. Heemat and his group are a perfectly nice bunch of worshipers. There are just certain problems with being a minor deity. For one thing, there’s very little chance for promotion. And the hours! I’ve been thinking seriously about getting into another line of work.”
“What do you wish from us, Adequate One?” Heemat continued.
“Mostly that you stop asking questions,” the deity replied. “Believe it or not, I am here for a reason.”
There was silence in the Great Hall. All was still. I noticed that sometime after the appearance of Plaugg, the Dealer of Death had managed to quit the stage. I decided to search the room for him, but I didn’t have to look far. He stood just behind Ebenezum. He smiled at me.
“Oh,” Plaugg said as the silence lengthened. “I suppose you want to know why I’m here. Well, that’s a reasonable request, and you are my worshipers, after all. Very well. I am here to band us together through the coming crisis.”
The coming crisis? I did not like the sound of that. Hendrek muttered darkly at my side.
A hermit directly below the deity pulled back his hood. It was Snarks.
“You mean the attack from the Netherhells?”
“Why, yes, didn’t I say that?” Plaugg rubbed at his balding pate as he stared in the distance. “Oh. I suppose I didn’t.” He looked down at the ground beneath our feet. “Here it comes now.”
It started more as a feeling than a sound. Deep, far
220 Craig 5nav, Gardner deeper than any of the quakes we heard before, as if it started at the center of the world.
“Now I want us all to be ready!” Plaugg cried, his voice much stronger than before. “In a few minutes, we’re going to see all kinds of demons! But they’ve never dealt with anyone like Plaugg’s hermits before!”
The noise grew beneath our feet.
“Doom,” Hendrek intoned. He unsheathed the doomed club, Headbasher. Ebenezum backed away to a safer distance.
“Now I want every one of you to do your utmost!” the deity encouraged. “Drive those demons back where they came from. Do it for Plaugg!” _
The rumbling had become a vibration in the floor. It was difficult to remain standing. The Dealer walked up to me.
“It appears I must once again postpone your deaths,” he said behind his childlike smile. “Oh, well. This is the most fun I’ve ever had, ever!” He flexed his muscles and stared expectantly at the floor.
I was glad someone was having a good time. The quake was quite loud by now. Plaugg had to shout to be heard.
“Okay.” He pointed a quivering finger at the middle of the audience. “I imagine the Netherhells will break through just about there. And I’m pretty good at guessing these things, let me tell you. Comes with the job, I suppose. So everyone should spread out to the corners of the room. And pile those tables up in front of you, why don’t you? It’ll protect you from some of the molten debris.”
“What, are some of you leaving?” Plaugg shook his balding head. “Now, you don’t want to get me angry, do you? My wrath may not be ir. the big leagues, but it is moderately great, let me tell you! Oh, weapons? You need weapons? Well, all right, then. I do sometimes get carried away with myself. You’ll have to excuse me.”
I looked to my master, and he turned away from the deity, a bemused smile on his face.
“We find ourselves in the middle again, Wunt-vor,” remarked the mage. He held his nose as Hen-drek approached.
“Doom,” the large warrior intoned. “We shall be overwhelmed by those things!” He shifted the great warclub nervously from hand to hand.
This whole situation seemed to have gotten totally out of control. “Perhaps we should relocate,” I suggested delicately.
Ebenezum shook his head. “I fear we should have to relocate to another world entirely. I think that for the first time in our travels, we have stumbled on something that is truly serious.”
I swallowed hard. My hands ached for my stout oak staff. This was serious? Then what were all our battles and narrow escapes of the past few weeks? For a brief moment, I even longed for the utter peace and boredom of our home in the Western Kingdoms.
“Okay, now, they’re almost here!” Plaugg shrieked at the top of his lungs. The rumbling had redoubled again. I tried to speak to my master, but I couldn’t even hear myself. “Is everybody ready? I know you can do it! Just do what you do best!”
The deity paused to look at Ebenezum and myself. “Now, I will ask you folks not to do the fish trick. I know it has worked before, but this situation is different. And I simply refuse to work around large quantities of dead haddock. I’m sorry, but we all have our limits.
“Here they come! Here they come!” Plaugg was beginning to sound really excited. “Let’s hear the call and defeat them all! Do it for Plaugg!”
That’s when the earth really began to shake. I was thrown off my feet and bounced across the room. I tried to follow Plaugg’s advice and crawl toward the wall.
And then the ground was ripped in two. I grabbed onto a table just to hold on to something solid. The table shifted and dragged me along with it toward the crack that widened in the floor. I was sliding straight for a pit that dropped all the way down to the Netherhells! I could hear the death screams of those who fell before me; screams that started loud and shrill, then faded with distance. I tried to find something else to grab onto, but everything was slipping away with me.
And then it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. I found myself face to face with a troll.
“Slobber!” the troll remarked.
I hit the troll with the table. The table broke.
“Slobber!” the troll repeated.
“Oh, if my teachers could only see me now!” A large hand appeared before me and plucked the troll off the ground. An incredibly cheerful Dealer of Death stood at my side.
“This is the first chance I’ve had to strangle a troll,” the Dealer enthused.
“No slob—“ was all the troll had time to say.
A great, deep voice spoke somewhere behind me:
“Come on, my minions! Grab all of them!
A MAIADY OF MAGICKS And tear every one of them Limb from limb!”
Dust filled the air. It was impossible to see more than a few feet. Still, I had a cold feeling in my stomach about that voice. Ony one poet could be that bad.
“Roar for the Netherhells Let your colors unfurl, In a matter of hours We will rule this world!”
Dimly, I could see a great blue form standing above the rubble. Yes, it was the demon Guxx.
“We’ll rule this world With pride and pomp, And so for the moment Let’s Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!”
This was terrible! There were demons everywhere! Every second the dust cleared, there seemed to be more of them, as if they sprang from the dust itself. If someone didn’t do something quickly, we were all going to die. Worse yet, the last sounds to assail our ears would be Guxx’s doggerel verse.
But then a higher voice cried out from across the room:
“Give me a P!”
A few ragged “P”s were shouted here and there.
“Give me an L!”
I cried, “L!” with the others. The response was stronger now.
“Quickly now!” Guxx screamed back at us.
“Don’t let them rally! We need a death count we can tally!”
But the other voice would not be silenced.
“Give me an A!”
The dust had settled enough now so that I could see halfway around the room. A small red demon jumped for my throat. I still held a table leg, all that remained of the weapon I had used on the troll. I batted the small demon high in the air.
“A!” I cried.
Hendrek was at my side. His warclub wove a fantastic pattern in the air, knocking the senses from a dozen demons in as many seconds. Cries of “What?” “Who am I?” and “What am I doing here?” could be heard from those demons who were still conscious, evidence of Headbasher’s hellish powers.
“U!” Hendrek cried with the rest of us.
I looked about for my master.
“Give me a G!”
The Dealer of Death stood at my other side, moving so fast that he made Hendrek’s attack look like a Sunday stroll. Demon arms and legs were all around him. Sometimes they had demons attached.
“G!” the Dealer cried with the others. He laughed and began to whistle.
I spotted Heemat and Snarks as part of a circle of about a dozen hermits. Each of them held a stick a bit thicker and a little shorter than my usual stout oak walking staff. They were using them quite effectively to hold off a horde of demons and doing occasional greater damage among the fiends as well.
“Give me another G!”
“Another G!” they cried together joyously.
And then I saw my master. He had backed up against a pile of rubble, holding his nose with both hands.
A particularly large and hairy troll advanced upon him.
“Slobber,” the troll said in its gravel voice.
“And what does that spell?” came the voice from on high.
Ebenezum’s face had become an odd shade of purplish red. His head reared back involuntarily. He could no longer hold his malady within.
The troll felt the full force of the nasal blow. The muscular creature jumped and screamed, shaking mucus from its legs and arms.
“No slobber! No slobber!” it cried as it ran back to the pit that led to the Netherhells.
“Plaugg!” a hundred voices joined together to shout.
“What’s that spell?” the first voice prompted again.
“Plaugg!” We all joined in this time, a thousand voices strong.
“One more time!” The voice sounded delirious with joy.
I saw Ebenezum take a deep breath and join in.
“Plaugg!”
The world froze around us. Or, more specifically, the demons froze, in whatever position they had assumed when we had let loose with our final cheer. What dust remained in the air had vanished as well. Our surroundings were as cool and clear as a spring morning.
Plaugg hung where we’d left him in the middle of the air.
“There,” he said. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”
Guxx screamed in rage from atop a large pile of dead hermits. Apparently he was the only demon unaffected by our chanted magic.
“You think to stop Guxx and his demons, But I will find a way to free them!”
Ebenezum blew his nose. “Beware!” he called to Plaugg. “His power grows with every rhyme!”
“Even that one?” The deity shook his head in disbelief. “But who am I to judge? I don’t make the rules. Or at least not many of them.”
The large blue demon flexed its muscular arms. Its claws had grown back since its fight with Ebenezum.
“You try to stop Guxx with your jokes, But I will live to see you choke!”
I saw the demons nearest me twitch slightly. Guxx’s poetry would bring them back to life!
“My, you are a serious fellow, aren’t you?” Plaugg replied. “Just a second, now, and I’ll nicely send you back where you came from.”
Ebenezum began to sneeze again. The demon’s magic was returning!
Guxx bared its razor fangs.
“You’ll not have a moment! You’ll have no time at all, For me and my demons Will cause your downfall!”
All the demons nearby definitely quivered.
“Oh, this fellow can be tiresome, can’t he?” Piaugg replied. “Give me a moment, won’t you? I hardly ever do these physical manifestations, and usually they only allow me to show up as burning moss. I’m not high enough up on the ladder to do bushes, you know. But do I mind?”
Guxx leapt up and raked the air with its claws. You could tell the demon was feeling better with every passing moment.
“You’ve had your chance, You heavenly fool, But now ‘tis time For demons to rule!”
I saw the demon closest to me blink repeatedly.
“Name calling, is it, then?” Plaugg retorted. “It’s no longer a gentleman’s game, I see. If I wasn’t having so much trouble figuring out just how to make things work in this form, you wouldn’t even have time to carry on this way. Perhaps I should have shown up as the burning tree moss after all. It’s not very intellectually stimulating, though, let me tell you.”
“I’ve had enough of your lies and talk! Fellow demons, arise, to work!”
The frozen demons didn’t move. “Ahem,” Guxx remarked. “Not good enough, huh? Well, let’s try this:
“Come on demons, arise, dig in, For we have a world to win!”
A few of the demons yawned and stretched. “O reasonably mighty Plaugg!” Heemat cried. “Do something. Please?”
“I’m sorry,” the deity replied. “I can’t be rushed. Oh, wait a second. Is this it?” He shook his posterior three times. Nothing happened.
“Arise demons! Come now, make haste! For we have a world to waste!”
The demons awoke en masse.
“Quick! Do something!” Heemat screamed. “Er ... we beseech you! Please!”
“Yes, yes, I’ll have it soon.” Plaugg bit his lower lip. “You’ll just have to handle them for a moment or two.”
“This one is mine!” the Dealer of Death called, launching himself toward Guxx. “I always wanted to strangle a really big demon!”
Guxx struck out at the approaching assassin, but the Dealer was too fast. Guxx held nothing but itself in its claws, and the Dealer held the demon in a stranglehold from behind.
“Demons, demons, to work, to work! We must overwhelm these pitiful—urracht!”
The Dealer tightened his hold.
“Wait a second!” Plaugg cried as the demons once again began to rend and tear. “I have it!” He shook his posterior three times and snapped his fingers.
Trumpets sounded from on high. I heard the flutter of wings above us, too, as if the air were filled with invisible birds. An even larger hole appeared in the middle of the room. The denizens of the Netherhells shrieked as one as they were pulled back to their home.
When the hole had closed, Heemat and ten other hermits rose from where they sat on Snarks.
“Can’t risk losing a convert.” Heemat smiled.
“Vsspllthmm Quxx!” Snarks replied.
“There’s one left?” Plaugg frowned. “But I quite specifically remember getting an exact count.”
It was then that I realized the Dealer was no longer among us.
“Well.” Plaugg said. “It’s been nice. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I need a vacation. It’s a problem with my position, you know. Do you think they give me any time off at all?”
And with that, Plaugg was gone as well.
Ebenezum blew his nose.
“Now our real work begins.”
“Beginnings and endings are, for the most part, artificial constructs. You say you begin when you are born, but what of those months spent growing in the womb? Endings are hazier still, for further things may occur that extend and enlarge the earlier story. And that is my final sentence on the subject. Or perhaps this one is the final sentence. No, most assuredly what I write now is the final word on the matter. But now that I think upon it, perhaps this—“
THE TEACHINGS OF EBENEZUM, Volume LVII (Abridged)
“What do you mean, you won’t pay?” Ebenezum stared evenly at a scarlet Heemat. “As you recall, good Heemat, we paid for basic room and board on arrival. At that point, you gave us no indication of the extent of additional charges we might entail.” “But surely you must realize that a hovel of our standing—“
The wizard glanced through the three sheets of parchment, each one filled with a list of charges written in a tiny hand. “Now, I see you list a broken table among the charges. That, at least, is a reasonable request. I suggest that you contact the man who broke said table. He is, I believe, currently residing in the Netherhells.” He slapped the bill before him. “Ninety-six gallons of lemon custard? You would dare charge us—“ Ebenezum became speechless with wizardly rage.
Heemat shrugged. “Someone has to pay it.”
“Indeed.” The wizard spoke all too evenly. I had seen my master like this before. I stood as far back as I could possibly get.
“I will say the following only once,” the wizard remarked. “Sir, how would you feel if you were turned into a frog?”
“A frog,” Heemat repeated. He looked down at his feet. Perhaps he imagined them webbed. He looked back at Ebenezum, in full sorcerous regalia.
“A frog,” he said again. He snatched the bills from Ebenezum’s grasp. “Well, perhaps there are a few mistakes herein. Occasionally, our accountants do become overzealous. I shall review the account personally.”
“Please do so.” The wizard’s voice had grown considerably calmer. “We will, of course, be taking Snarks with us as well.”
“You’re taking Snarks?” The color returned to Heemat’s face. “You cheat me of my rightful monies, and then you demand my best assistant? I’ll have you know—“
“I understand the lily pads are very nice this time of year,” Ebenezum interjected.
“Lily pads.” Heemat went white. “Too long have
I neglected my vow of silence. It is high time I reinstituted my most holy pledge, this very instant.” Heemat clamped his lips together tight.
“I have always admired holy men,” Ebenezum replied as Hendrek joined us. The large warrior had Snarks in tow.
The demon hermit removed its cowl. “They are right, friend Heemat,” it said. “I saw what was going on before I was expelled from the Netherhells. There are certain demons down there who are tired of being constantly under the earth. They would like to see what it feels like to control the surface as well. And these factions are finding greater demonic favor everyday.”
“Far too true,” Ebenezum agreed from a safe distance. “My ‘prentice and I have seen a massive overabundance of sorcerous activity in our travels to fabled Vushta, and I have long feared consequences such as these. So the four of us, Wuntvor, myself, Snarks, and the warrior Hendrek, must continue to Vushta in all haste. At first, I wished to visit this city for personal reasons. Now, though, I must make preparations to warn the great Wizard’s University, and help them prepare for the tremendous sorcerous battle that is to come.”
Heemat nodded silently.
“So you actually will keep to your vow of silence,” Snarks remarked. “It will make up for all the times you talked too much. And you know, friend Heemat, you, too, could stand to lose a few pounds. And of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention grrllp xxzzttff krll.”
Hendrek had replaced the cowl on the demon’s head.
“Doom,” the warrior remarked.
Heemat, who seemed on the edge of saying something, glanced at the wizard and did not.
“We appreciate your reasonableness in this matter,” Ebenezum continued to the hermit. “And due to the severity of the matter, we have taken the liberty of borrowing a horse and cart from your stables. Oh, have no fear! They’ll only be gone for a few months at most! That is, so long as we’re not attacked by demons. Still, I want you to know that all four of us appreciate your sacrifice, so that we may get some much needed rest on our way to Vushta.”
He pointed to the kitchen. “Wuntvor, go and fetch those two sacks of provisions I had put aside.”
I did as I was told, doing my best to ignore Heemat, who had once again turned the red of a truly spectacular sunset.
And so we were on our way once again to Vushta, city of a thousand forbidden delights that could truly mark a man for life. I couldn’t remember the last time I was in such a good mood. A light rain fell as the cart made its way through the woods, as refreshing a cold, light rain as I had ever felt. I hummed to myself as I urged the horse forward. Coming from a farming background, I had as much experience as anyone with animals.
Ebenezum sat on the seat next to me on the cart. It was plain that the wizard was still exhausted. Every minute or two he began to nod, until the bumps of the cart jarred him awake. Hendrek sat directly behind us, glowering as usual. Snarks sat even farther back in the cart, under the canvas covering, doing whatever Snarks did deep within those robes.
A bloodcurdling scream came from the bushes. A man dressed only in a loincloth rushed toward the cart, dagger held before him. His bare foot hit a rock as he ran up the road. He tripped. Somehow, he managed to impale himself on his own weapon.
“Another assassin,” I remarked absently as we rode by the corpse.
“Indeed,” Ebenezum replied. “It’s all rather comforting, isn’t it?”
And indeed it was. Ebenezum finally fell to sleep in earnest, and I continued to drive the cart, to Vushta and destiny.
Oh, what a wonderful world!