Cutting Sinzerklaazz out of the equation.
See, the black angels should have collected Larry’s spirit and taken it to the Ice Realm. Instead, they would take him to Limbo.
Where the armies of the dark masters would be waiting to pour through that conduit to the normal world.
And Hilario accidentally thwarted every single dark lord in the unseen world at a single stroke.
Oh dear.
54
They didn’t need the Sapphire Witch to fly the van over the black water blocking the road.
Lord Igdibon helpfully seized them before she could.
The lord of this realm wasn’t quite what Hilario was expecting.
The van sat precariously balanced on a column of black rock. The undercarriage groaned and creaked with every breath of wind that touched the van’s body. Everyone inside the van sat very still.
Very, very still.
Except for Larry, who was insubstantial and this felt free to hurl insults and the lord of this particular dark realm.
Sweat rolled down the sides of Hilario’s face. His poor greasepaint was getting even more streaked. Making a travesty of his uniform.
Though, at the moment, this was the least of his worries.
Not even the collectively nauseating odor of his companions seemed important. Though, he really would have liked to roll the window down to get some (relatively) fresh air.
But even the very act of breathing seemed to make the van tremble and creak on its stony pivot.
And it wasn’t that they were so high up. Maybe thirty or forty, or maybe fifty feet from the jagged stone floor of the…whatever this place was…a cavern of some sort?
No, that wasn’t the worst of it. The fall, while probably not survivable, would have at least brought an end to their adventure.
But, this being the unseen world, there had to be a complication.
This time the complication was a single razor-tongued-piano-spider.
It was only the second time Hilario had seen one in the wild. The first one he’d seen had been just a baby, the size of a car tire. Barely big enough to kill the medium-sized orke caught in its web.
This one…it seemed a full sized adult. Its body was a big as the van. A deep, shiny blue, covered in quivering spikes. Its segmented legs arced out, delicate and graceful as it danced around the singing threads of its web.
At its face, below its dozens of compound eyes, was a wide slash of a mouth with a disturbingly human set of red lips. Which parted to reveal gleaming blades inside its maw. Whether they were the spider’s tongue and actual razors or not seemed moot. He had no doubt they were razor sharp.
But that still wasn’t the most disturbing part of the spider, unfortunately. No, that went to the sound it made.
As it danced over the dozens of threads that made up its giant web, a curious sound came from its bulging abdomen.
Cheerful piano tunes.
Tunes that plinked and plunked and ran the scales up and down in delightful scores that children at birthday parties would have joyfully clapped their hands to.
Right before the spider ate them.
The dissonance between the razor-tongued-piano-spider’s horrifying appearance and it’s cheerful tunes weren’t the worst thing though.
The worst part was that Lord Igdibon was riding it. Sitting on a lovely hand-tooled leather saddle. Singing in tune with the spider’s inner pianist. A cheerful song about butterflies and puppies.
It made Hilario’s head hurt.
“Where’s Rachel you son of a bitch!” Larry shouted, “Let her go! I know she’s here!”
Lord Igdibon either didn’t hear or didn’t care to reply. He went on riding his terror spider and singing about how lovely butterflies and puppies were in a high, clear voice.
Definitely not one expected the lord of a dark realm to do. Riding horrific beasts, sure, that was within the normal range of over-the-top evil behavior. Though it would have been more normal they had been dragged to some dank, stone pile of a keep and presented to the lord as he sat brooding on some overly ornate, oversized throne.
That was the standard playbook for dark lords. And gray lords, and pretty much any kind of entity in a leadership position in the unseen world. Heck, even the grocer in Hilario’s old neighborhood had a throne. Made of the skulls and bones of shoplifters.
Old Mr. Jankbar was pretty hardcore for a guy who peddled canned beetles and fresh worm hearts.
“I feel disturbed by this dark lord’s behavior,” Odom the paladin whispered.
Disturbed? On what level? Disturbed that Igdibon wasn’t acting like a typical evil lord? Well, he was, mostly. He had them trapped in an overly ridiculous cage and was threatening them with a horrible death.
The only odd part was the cheerful singing.
And, maybe Igdibon’s appearance.
Okay. That was odd too.
Igdibon seemed to have some relation to the elven people–as many dark lords did. His features were fine and handsome, his cheekbones impossibly high and knife sharp. His black eyes were delicate ovals sitting beneath perfectly shaped eyebrows. His ears held flat to his head and came to fine points at the top. His hair was long, jet black and flowing behind him in a wondrous mane that never seemed to get tangled, no matter how he tossed his head. His limbs were long and filled with chisled muscle. Long, delicate fingers held the reins of his terror spider in a firm grip.
No, all that part of him was normal, again.
It was how he dressed that didn’t make any sense.
It really didn’t.
He wore a deep blue business suit. With a red power tie. Diamond cufflinks sparked at his wrists.
