“Is that as big of a problem as I think it is?” asked Randall.
“Unless you're so optimistic as to be mentally defective, yes.” The machine began to tilt downward and pass through the clouds again. Toby glanced around the rapidly-approaching land. “You don't see any water we could land in, do you?”
“No!” shouted Randall, totally panicked.
“Any full-bodied people we could land on to cushion the impact?”
“No! None! We're all done for!”
“I really have to apologize for this,” Toby said.
“Apology accepted,” Bug told him.
“At least I didn't charge you. That'll ease my conscience in these last few moments.”
The sail broke off, followed immediately by the two empty seats on the end. Yvonne leaned over toward Randall. “I'm sorry if this is inconvenient, but I really don't want to die being known as Yvonne the Pure.”
“Um, I'd be happy to oblige, but right now I'm suffering from the Terminal Droop.”
They were heading straight for a small town. “Thirty seconds ‘til the splatfest,” Toby announced. “Would you like me to continue the countdown or just shut up and leave you to your final thoughts?” The entire rack broke off, nearly taking Toby with it. “Ah, like it matters,” he said.
“I have a confession to make before I die,” said Jack. “I eat slugs.”
“Jack!” exclaimed Yvonne, horrified.
“It's the truth,” he sobbed. “I never intended to, but one day I saw a slug out on the ground and I had some salt handy, so I poured the salt on it to watch it dissolve, but then I figured that was a waste of good salt, and one thing led to another, and soon I was addicted! Oh, spank me now!”
“Look at all those people down there,” said Toby, pointing to the town, which was much closer now. “I wonder what's going on? I hope it's a funeral so we don't bum anybody's high spirits.”
“Wait!” Randall shouted. “There's a haystack down there! Aim for it!”
“I can't! We lost the controls!” said Toby. “But I've got an idea! Everyone lean to the left!” He leaned to the left, falling off the machine with a scream and hurtling toward the ground without the benefit of a large iron bar to cushion the impact.
“I miss him already,” said Bug.
“This has been a long thirty seconds,” Yvonne noted.
“Look!” said Randall. “Fruit carts! If we jump at the precise moment, we can land on them!”
“And over there!” said Jack. “Children playing with rubber balls! We can land on those as well!”
“And behind that barn!” said Yvonne. “Somebody spat out a piece of chewing gum!”
They were seconds from hitting the ground. Just before the individual seats broke off, Randall, Jack, and Yvonne leapt from the machine. Bug flew off and landed happily on the shoulder of a woman who currently needed some counseling.
Randall struck a load of tomatoes, spraying red chunks everywhere and wasting a great deal of food. Jack hit the rubber balls at the perfect angle and bounced off them, landing painfully on the ground. The chewing gum absorbed enough of the force of Yvonne's landing that she remained intact. And Toby had managed to hit the haystack, though a severe allergy to all straw-based products currently had him in a sneezing fit.
The remainder of the flying machine smashed into a large group of men in black armor—some servants of the Dark One who were in the process of making prisoners of the town's residents. But there were plenty more. The town had been overtaken by them, and citizens were being chained together and marched toward an unknown destination.
“It's them!” shouted one of the town's residents. “They who are prophesized to fall from the sky and defeat the Dark One!”
“You moron!” shouted another resident. “The prophecy was for a guy in a duck suit to defeat the Dark One, and he drowned in the pond!”
Randall sat up and tried to squirm his way out of the tomato cart. Two men in the black armor approached him, swords drawn.
“Seize the others!” one of the men shouted to his comrades. “We'll take care of this one.”
“Don't come any closer!” Randall said. “I am the great and powerful magician Slurpy, here to wreak my vengeance upon those who would dare attempt to take me into custody!”
“Hold on,” said the man, who wore a name tag reading ‘Nichols.’ “You mean to tell me that you crashed here just so you could wreak vengeance upon people who might try and capture you after you crashed?”
“Indeed.”
“Hello? Mr. Brain? Are you home? What kind of moronic thinking is that, crashing into a tomato cart just on the off-chance that we might try to kidnap you? Can you say ‘ninny?'”
“Don't test him!” said Nichols’ partner, Gelder, nervously. “The ways of magicians are truly mysterious.”
“If this guy really is a magician, then he's the biggest dork-maestro I've ever met.” He pointed the end of his sword at Randall's face. “If you're such a good magician, do something about my sword before I poke it into that little dent in between your nose and upper lip.”
“You mean my philtrum,” said Randall.
“Of course I mean your philtrum!”
“Such a vulgar display of power would be beneath my standards,” said Randall. “But heed my warning. If any section of my philtrum is damaged by your blade, the repercussions will be swift and painful.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
“Oh.” Nichols hesitated. “Okay, fine. I won't use my sword. But we're going to take you and your friends to see the Dark One, and he will punish you as he sees fit.”
“You will take us nowhere!” said Randall in a booming voice. “You will release us, and you will release the citizens of this town, or I shall become very, very angry!”
“If you're such a golly-gee-whiz great magician, how come you're still standing there with tomato gook all over you?”
Suddenly a hangman's noose was thrown around Randall's neck from behind. He clutched at it and gagged as he was dragged to the rear of the tomato cart. After he managed to turn around, he saw a group of five or six of the black-armored warriors, one of them holding the end of the rope.
“He lies!” shouted the rope-holder. “A real magician would have escaped by now!”
“Kill him!” shouted Nichols. “I want him dead!”
“Ah, you want everybody dead,” muttered Gelder.
Randall, trying to keep from being strangled, was pulled out of the cart and thrown to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Yvonne being chained to the end of the line of prisoners. Out of the other corner of his eye he noticed the same thing happening to Jack and Toby. About twenty of the men in black armor remained behind, excluding the ones that had been hit by the machine and were moaning in pain.
“Leave him alone!” said Bug, flying into the crowd of men. One of them quickly reached up and plucked Bug out of the air.
“I'll put it with the other insects,” he said.
Nichols walked around the cart. “Get him to his feet!”
Randall was yanked to a standing position. “I get one more warning, right?”
“The warnings have ended,” said Nichols. He raised his sword again. “Okay, which eye should I gouge out first?”
One of the men raised his hand. “The right! The right! Ooh! Ooh! Please do the right!”
Gelder glanced over his shoulder. “Did you guys hear something? Like an approaching group of marauders?”
Everyone stopped and listened. There was definitely a large number of footsteps approaching. “Who could it be?” asked one of the men.
Then the group, thirty strong, came into view at the other end of the street, running at top speed. “Oh no,” whispered Nichols. “Not them.”
“We are the League of Waldos!” the leader shouted as they continued rushing forward. “We are here to...” The leader trailed off, and quit running. The others did as well. “Where are you taking those people?”
