“Yes, master,” said Scrivener, running his hand over the fingerprint-covered crystal ball. An image began to form. “Alas, master, I see defeat!”
“What?” thundered the Dark One. “Defeat from whom?”
“It is a man ... a man named ... Ralph! No, wait, the eels just got him. You're clear.”
“Good,” smiled the Dark One. “Then I shall rule this land with an iron fist!” He stood up and clenched his iron fist. He wore a suit of black armor, completely covered with terrifyingly sharp spikes. The Dark One went through a lot of furniture because of this suit.
There was a timid knock at the door on the other end of the throne room, then another dwarf, Wyrkham, entered, knees shaking. “Master? I'm afraid I bring bad news.”
“Then you're screwed,” the Dark One noted. “But give me the news anyway.”
“The attack this morning on Mosiman Kingdom failed. We tried our hardest, but they had lots and lots of really big sticks!”
The Dark One took a cruel and merciless step forward. “I am not pleased, servant.”
Wyrkham gulped. “Am I in trouble?”
“Let me put it to you this way: Yes.” He walked over to the whimpering dwarf and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “I think it is time you saw my real face.”
“Oh, no, master! I beg you! Give me another chance!”
“I think not.” With his free hand, the Dark One removed the mask. “Feast your eyes! Glut your soul, upon my accursed ugliness!”
Wyrkham's eyes widened, and he staggered backward. It took several moments for him to verbalize his reaction. “
“Leave me!” shouted the Dark One, replacing his mask. “Get out of my sight!”
Wyrkham hurriedly headed for the exit. “Jeez, no wonder you have so much trouble keeping concubines around!”
“Candid twerp,” muttered the Dark One. “But never mind. This is but a minor setback, for soon my army shall crush the feeble denizens of this land, and I shall rule! Muahahahahaha!”
“Yes,” said Scrivener. “Moo ha ha ha!”
“Your sadistic glee is forced, my servant. The very moment I have this land in my choking grip, I shall teach you to cackle like the demons writhing in their tormented ecstasy!
* * * *
RANDALL, YVONNE, Jack, and Bug moved at a casual pace through a vast meadow. They'd been walking most of the day in search of a town or kingdom where they could glean information about Jenstina or Shreddriff, but so far they'd had no luck. The countryside was beautiful, however.
“This countryside sucks,” proclaimed Jack. “Nothing but trees, flowers, ponds, and the occasional complacent fauna. What we need is a good volcano!”
“Haven't you had enough excitement?” asked Randall.
“You can never have enough excitement!”
“Bite your tongue,” said Yvonne. “Let's enjoy the peaceful moments while we can.”
“Ow!” winced Randall.
“Jack, I said bite
“Oh, sorry.”
They continued walking, as time trickled past like the crisp photosynthesized leaves falling from the trees to be decomposed in order to replenish the precious balance of nature's way. Jack and Bug moved up ahead, as their argument about shag carpets grew more and more heated.
“What are your dreams?” Yvonne asked Randall. “Where do you want to be ten years from now?”
“Ten years to the day, or just a decade in general?”
“It doesn't matter. I want to know where you hope to find yourself in the future.”
“Well, a major hope for my future is that I'm not dead, because that sort of reduces the number of possible accomplishments. And if at all possible I'd like for all four of my major limbs to be in fully-functioning order, and if I can avoid any serious brain damage, that would have to count as a definite plus as well.”
“Me, I want to fall in love. I want a lover who would climb the most treacherous cliff in the land just to get me the single strawberry growing there.”
Randall glanced over at the sufficiently treacherous cliff off in the distance, with a strawberry-shaped dot of red near the top. “I could go for a strawberry, too,” he remarked.
“So you'll do it for me?” asked Yvonne, thrilled. “I've never known a man who was willing to risk his life for me before! Well, there was Martin, but he was seriously injured in the process and can't pronounce his vowels anymore.”
“Well, I'd like to,” said Randall, “but we're kind of in the middle of an important quest.”
“What could be more important than the quest for love?”
“The quest for not getting savagely beaten and executed.”
“Randall, the princess will still be there when you get back. Ashes don't have a shelf life. But we're here now, and if we leave, some other hero could pick that strawberry for his own lover, and she'd probably be ungrateful and complain that it's covered with too many seeds.”
“Are we falling in love?” Randall asked.
“Yes, we are.”
“How did this happen? It seems like I had just asked you to chew a mint leaf, and now here we are all of a sudden making goo-goo eyes at each other in a meadow.”
“Don't question the ways of love.”
Randall whistled to get Jack and Bug's attention. “Hey, come on back here for a second.”
“Yeah, what?” asked Jack as they approached.
“The quest is going to be put on hold for a little bit while I climb up that cliff and pick a strawberry.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Bug. “Have fun.”
“Um, Randall?” asked Jack. “Can I talk to you for a moment in private?”
“All right.” Randall and Jack began walking forward together. “What is it?”
“This is your quest, of course, and I don't want to tell you what to do, any more than I'd want you to tell me what to do, because freedom is one of our most cherished gifts, and it's not something to be taken for granted. But you're acting like a blithering idiot.”
“A blithering one? Are you sure?”
Jack nodded. “If you don't find the reagents, you're up Spit Creek without waders, and yet you're willing to put everything on hold to pick some fruit for a halitosis-plagued woman you just met? I mean, she's got that ‘The Pure’ after her name, so you're not doing it for touchie-feelie-happy-squealie, which would be just as stupid but understandable.”
“I don't know what's going on,” Randall admitted. “It's just that when I look at her, I feel this tingling inside, as if the Spiders of Love were dancing around my innards with their tiny arachnid feet.”
“Listen, Randall, you have to control yourself. This falling in love thing—it's like I were writing a book, and I decided I needed to put some romance in it to make it more commercial, and even though the love story didn't fit in with the rest of the plot and was extremely unbelievable and forced, I put it in there anyway. Do you see what I'm saying?”
“Obviously I can't
“So what are you going to do?”
“Snag the strawberry.”
Jack shrugged. “Fine. It's your life. Do what you want.”
Randall returned to Yvonne. “I'm ready to climb the cliff,” he told her. “Any words of loving advice before I go?”
“If you fall, try to land on your back. You won't linger in agony quite as long.”
