213. On the Hook

The fish were screaming. There was a time when such a thing would have disturbed me, now it barely registered. I thumped each fish on the head with a bough I found nearby. That’d give them something to scream about.

I walked along the bank of the lake we’d stopped at and bonked each shrieker with a quick, sharp, well-aimed strike. Abattoir Colin, new character skin.

The girls were lounging about like they were on holiday, half-dressed and soaking up the sun which was high overhead. We had flown east for the whole of the night, borne on the backs of dragons, eager to get as far away as we could from Elfs and dwarfs, and any creature capable of doing us harm.

It could be said that group included every living thing on this planet, but there had to be somewhere in this world where the murderous beasties were too busy killing each other to bother with small fry like us.

We were a thin weedy bunch who offered not much in the way of sustenance or nutrition. Apart from Flossie, obviously, who had those deposits of subcutaneous fat that women derisively call cellulite, and hungry predators call delicious. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Maurice stood in the water up to his thighs, gently calling to the fish with the magic the frogmen had taught us. That seemed like a million years ago. He didn’t bother with a spear, he waited until a curious but trusting fish swam between his legs, and scooped it up with his hands, sending it soaring into the air.

I could have yanked the fish out of the water myself, my fish-summoning having reached a level of mastery that could make them literally leap into the fire we’d built, but Maurice wanted to practice his magic. Which put me on kipper-bashing duty. Not a euphemism.

While Maurice and I delivered lunch, Dudley had made himself an ad hoc archery range and practised his skill with the bow he’d taken from the Fengarad armoury. He was remarkably proficient and rarely missed.

Everyone had kitted themselves out before we’d left for the big battle that had failed to materialise (thanks to me), and their garments were of the highest quality. They looked like nobles on a weekend break. A bunch of nobs.

I had the same crappy clothes, barely hanging together, which was absolutely fine by me. Nobody would think I was worth fighting for my stuff, not when I was surrounded by so many richly adorned companions.

“How far is it to this place?” asked Claire as we ate roast fish, their severed heads lying on the turf, mouths agape in screams forever silenced. Tasty.

“I have no idea,” I said. “East, that’s all I know.”

The plan was to head for the fourth city of Flatland, Gorgoth. I didn’t know much about it other than it was the home of one of the people who had arrived in this world with Peter and Zarigold. The city was probably similar to the other three (full of bastards), and the man we were looking for probably couldn’t be trusted, but every journey needed a destination.

My goal was to find out how to use this newly discovered ability of mine, and Peter had intimated this was the guy to help me.

“So, yo’ want us to keep heading east until we see a city?” asked Flossie.

“Pretty much. Unless we spot something better on the way. If we find an abandoned castle we can claim and stay off everyone’s radar, I’d be all for it.”

“A castle’s aiming a bit high, isn’t it?” said Claire. “A cottage or something would be fine.”

There were general murmurs of agreement. I could tell this was something they’d already thought about, an idyllic home with roses running up a trestle, a burbling brook and a herb garden.

“Yeah, whatever. I only said castle because I saw a future where we lived in one.”

They all stopped eating and stared at me. Apparently, I hadn’t mentioned this to them before, not in the current timeline at least, and had to face twenty minutes of questions about the castle, most of my answers to which were variations of “How the fuck would I know?”, “I wasn’t paying attention” and “No idea.” It passed the time.

We had planned to stop for something to eat and a short rest before continuing our journey east, but we were all too relaxed and stuffed to move. It was a nice, peaceful glade we’d landed in, and the dragons were very happily demolishing it one bush at a time. You have no idea just how lit nature is until you see a dragon puke on his lunch and eat it.

We decided — and when I say we, I mean the girls told us — to spend the night here, stock up on more fish and head out in the morning. None of the boys, myself included, bothered arguing because we didn’t care either way.

This was a dangerous precedent to set. Even if you don’t care in the slightest about an outcome — where you’re going to eat, what movie you’re going to watch, what to name your children — giving up your right to influence a decision quickly erodes your right to influence any decision. This is why you should always insist on having things your way at least fifty percent of the time, no matter what the other person is suggesting. Women figured this out millennia ago.

The day drew to a close and the fire burned brightly next to a huge pile of freshly cut lumber. We didn’t have any axes, but we did have a herd of dragons that could eviscerate any form of vegetation. Getting them to not devour the trees after they cut them down was the tricky part.

Being hidden away in whatever nook of this world we had landed in made everyone feel very safe and secure, so naturally I was extremely nervous and uncomfortable. There was bound to be some horrendous encounter waiting for us around the next corner.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” said Jenny, sensing my discomfort. “We can relax for one night.”

“One night’s all they need,” I said.

“Who’s they?” she asked unnecessarily.

“I have no idea. But they’re out there, waiting.”

The dragons mooed in their deep, rumbling voices as they settled down for the night.

“This ability of yours,” said Maurice, “do you really think you’ll be able to control it?”

This was something that had been concerning me, too. From what I’d seen, it was extremely complex, and there was no telling what side-effect even the smallest change would have. The connections between people, between all things, wasn’t something to meddle with lightly. It would be far wiser to leave well alone.

But the potential was so great, it was hard to resist having a fiddle. I could become the most OP Visitor Flatland had ever seen. And while I generally kept to myself and held little interest in getting people to do what I wanted, it’d be pretty dumb to turn down the chance to go all Super Saiyan. Not to rule the world or beat the shit out of people I didn’t like, just to ensure fuckers left me alone.

“I think it’s worth investigating,” I said. “Enough to get an idea of what it would take, and who it would piss off. For all I know, it could take a thousand years of cultivation before I get to see Mount Tai.”

“Ah don’t know what the fook you’re talking about,” said Flossie, her grating Brummie tones drifting across the twilight.

“These vines and things,” said Maurice, “they connect everything?”

“I think so,” I mumbled contentedly, making myself comfortable with Jenny.

“People, too?” I could hear him scratching away in his notebook, and Claire grumbling as she tried to get comfortable beside him as he scribbled away.

“Yeah.”

“So we’re all connected. To each other. By our relationships and emotions and whatever?”

“Yeah. That’s what it looks like.”

“But not you. You’re untouchable.”

“Right.”

I felt Jenny push herself off my chest. “You’re not connected to anyone?”

I couldn’t see her face with the fire behind her, but I didn’t need to. “I have one connection, very thin and threadlike.”

“Fragile?”

“Unbreakable. I tried, nearly broke my fingers.”

She rested her head back down on my chest. I could feel the smile formed on her face.

“Wait,” said Claire, “you have no connection to any of us apart from Jenny?”

I could see this line of questioning had the potential to go very badly, but there was no point lying about it. “Not as far as I could tell.”

“But, these vines and tentacles,” Maurice cut in before things got ugly, “you saw them form and dissolve.”

“Yeah. Quite quickly in some cases.”

“So you may be forming temporary connections all the time.”

“I suppose so.”

There was a slight shift of mood, a lessening of tension.

“I can see that,” said Claire. “Unable to maintain proper relationships.”

“Sounds about right,” joined in Flossie.

Maurice’s theory could have been correct. Or not. I was just grateful he’d given me an out. It wasn’t them being angry with me for not being friendly enough, it was that they’d no doubt try to force a connection where none should exist. The thought of them rising to the challenge made me shudder.

We should have taken it in turns to stand guard, but everyone was knackered and we were in the middle of nowhere. It seemed unnecessary. When it was just the six of us, everything felt much more optimistic. An insipid side effect of being surrounded by dweebs. Even though that wasn’t my normal mindset, it was hard to resist the lure of a soft, warm body by a fire on a pleasant evening. I drifted off to sleep, my anxiety over how well things were going a distant nibble in the far reaches of my mind.

Foolish.

I woke just after dawn, the early sun yet to warm the air. The grass was wet with dew and the fire had gone out, the unused wood pile next to it excessive and redundant. There was no girl in my arms. Something that would have been quite normal once, but not anymore.

I sat up and looked around. Maurice and Dudley lay near me, both alone. There was no sign of any of the girls. This wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm, they may have just gone off to take care of early morning ablutions, and there’s nothing unusual about girls going to the bathroom together.

But that niggling worry that things had been going too well resurfaced.

The other two woke at the sound of me getting up and, once they noticed their missing partners, reacted with greater panic than was necessary. I tried to calm them down with reasonableness and common sense, but neither had much effect. They weren’t going to be satisfied until they saw the girls in the flesh.

We began looking around, calling out their names, which got no response other than to wake the dragons, who began farting loudly, which didn’t help.

“Here,” shouted Dudley. “I’ve found something.”

He was standing by a tree, pointing at a piece of paper pinned to the trunk by a dagger. There was a message on it.

If you want to see the girls again,

go to Wizard’s Tower

and kill the man within.

We had let our guard down and the thing I feared the most had happened. It was terrible and horribly upsetting to think what the girls were having to deal with, but I have to say, now that trouble had found us, I felt a lot better

“Do you think the girls are playing a prank on us?” asked Maurice.

“That would be an incredibly cruel and stupid thing to do,” I said, “so, yes, it’s possible.”

Dudley pulled the dagger out of the tree trunk and grabbed the note as it floated down. We all leaned in to have a look. It was written in the local alphabet.

Whoever had taken the girls, had done so without waking us, without hurting us, and had left behind instructions for us to kill someone on their behalf. If they were able to move around so stealthily, surely they’d be better off disposing of this tower bloke themselves.

“The important thing is not to panic,” I said.

“We’re not panicking,” said Maurice, calmly. He did seem to be taking it surprisingly well.

“We simply need to go to this tower and find out why they want us to kill this man,” said Dudley, equally composed. “I would assume he knows who wants him dead. We merely follow the trail back to the kidnappers.”

Maurice turned to him. “It’s unlikely they’ll harm the girls, they’re too valuable as collateral.” I might as well not have been here.

“We should have enough time to find them,” said Dudley. “Any minor injuries they might sustain can be healed,”

Who were these guys? They were speaking so dispassionately about things they should have been freaking out about, it made me want to give them a poke to make sure they weren’t imposters. So I did.

“They’re three girls in the clutches of a bunch of maniacs, “I said. “Death isn’t the only thing they’re at risk from.”

They both looked at me, cold eyes, no reaction on their faces.

“As long as they’re alive,” said Maurice, “nothing else matters.”

“Once we rescue them, we can deal with anything else as required,” said Dudley. “And then we’ll kill their captors. That should help deal with any lingering trauma.”

“Right,” agreed Maurice matter-of-factly. They could have been discussing the best route from Finsbury Park to Muswell Hill to avoid traffic and roadworks — problematic but manageable.

Personally, I don’t think I’m a sociopath. I have too many emotions. Not the good ones, like joy and optimism. I got the Fear & Shame starter pack, happiness available as a DLC. But I had enough experience compartmentalising my feelings to recognise the signs in Maurice and Dudley. They had gone so deep into shock, they’d come out the other end merciless and empathy-free. I had no doubt they’d kill anyone who got in their way. Men, women, children. Cute animals with human-like hands. No fucks would be given.

“I think we should find out what happened to the girls before we start handing out death sentences.” Colin the Reasonable One, my new persona.

“Of course,” said Maurice. “We’ll only kill them if they deserve it.”

“Society would be better served without their presence, I suspect,” added Dudley quite amiably.

“Let’s focus on the girls,” I said, steering the conversation back to more civilised things like kidnaps and ransoms. “Where’s this Wizard’s Tower?”

There were no directions to the place where we were meant to find the man we had to kill. Dudley turned the paper over, and revealed a crude drawing. There was a wigwam of lines, presumably meant to represent our fire, and a tower that looked like a rook from a chessboard drawn by a child and stuck on a fridge out of sympathy.

The only other landmark included in this work of art was a wiggly line between us and the tower. Presumably a river.

I did have another way to find Jenny. I had a connection to her I could follow through the adjacent world, the one with tentacles and vines. But I only had the one dwarfstone left to help me get there, and I was bound to need it later.

Rushing to the rescue without knowing what we were up against wasn’t going to help. The people responsible clearly needed our help with killing this guy. That meant they’d keep the girls alive.

“Wait a mo,” said Dudley. “I’ll just get my bearings.” And then he climbed up a tree.

It was like I didn’t even know these people. Dudley was a big, pudgy blob. I’d never seen him haul arse like that on the ground, never mind vertically. He scrambled up the trunk without any rope or harness and once he got to the lowest bough, he pulled himself up and disappeared into the branches.

“When did he learn to do that?”

Maurice glanced up from his notebook. New page with its own heading — that should give you an idea of how seriously he was taking this. “He’s been practising. Swimming, climbing and dodging rocks.” Maurice ignored my look of astonishment, or didn’t notice it. “If the man in the wizard’s tower is an actual wizard, that means he knows magic.”

“Mm,” I agreed, my neck tilted all the way back, my hand shielding my eyes as I tried to catch glimpses of Dudley, mainly so I could jump out of the way when he fell on top of me.

“Which probably means he’s some kind of beastman, or a Visitor.”

That made sense. We hadn’t seen magic used outside of those two groups. It would make killing him more difficult, but then we had no intention of killing him just because someone told us to. Well, I had no intention. It was hard to know what Batman and Green Arrow would do with their burgeoning sense of vigilante justice.

There was a crack and several twigs fell to the ground. I leaped to the side in preparation of Dudley’s imminent return via gravity. He shimmied down the trunk like a giant squirrel.

“Okay, north is that way.” Dudley pointed over his shoulder. “I didn’t see a tower, but I think there’s a river. The treeline shifts back and forth in a line all the way across.” His hand moved to indicate a line from west to east.

Maurice jotted down the details in his book, and then pushed his sliding glasses up his nose. “It’d be easier to see from the air.” He looked over at the dragons. They were working their way through what was left of the vegetation, not interested in our problems or the disappearance of their boss.

The problem with dragons is that they’re not very smart. Flossie could communicate her wishes to them, but that was something unique to her. I couldn’t just ask them to find the chubby girl or let them sniff her clothes. If I got on Vikchutni’s back, he might fly around with me as a passenger, but there was no way to control where he went. Or where he landed.

“I suppose we could try flying around a bit just to see if we can spot the tower,” I said.

“Okay,” said Maurice. “You go up and we’ll wait here.”

Smart. There was no need for us all to risk plummeting to our deaths. He might have been consumed with a desire to save his girlfriend, but he hadn’t lost all his marbles.

And neither had Dudley. “Or we could just head north to the river and see what we see.”

It was agreed this was probably the best course of action, mainly because we all refused to be the man who risks it all to help his friends. And rightly so. That man is an idiot.

The dragons didn’t seem concerned about our leaving. They remained in the glade, perfectly happy to eat, puke, eat and shit. Their life was one long Glaswegian weekend.

We set off through the dappled sunlight, the forest whispering and creaking but making little else in the way of noise. If there were animals about, they kept out of sight.

Maurice and Dudley continued to act like men on a mission. And I mean real men. Determined, focused and violent. Maurice swung the short sword he had acquired, hacking at low branches and defenceless bushes. Dudley shot arrows ahead of us, cleanly striking his designated targets which he would call out before firing.

I found myself slowly falling behind, moving slower and slower. I wasn’t sure why, but since leaving the clearing, a sense of dread had started to overwhelm me. I would soon find out what happened to the girls, and I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to know.

“Are you okay?” asked Maurice when he noticed I’d stopped moving.

“Yes. No. I’m not sure. Are you two just pretending to be okay?”

“She isn’t dead,” said Maurice. “You’d know if she was.”

“How would I know?”

“You just would. Same way I would, and he would.” He nodded at Dudley.

What he was saying didn’t make sense. Yes, there were people who could sense others in a special way, like how Jenny could sense me. But none of us had that ability.

“But what if you’re wrong,” I said quietly.

“Then it’s already too late and there’s nothing we can do. So let’s assume I’m not wrong.”

We’d been through this before, and the reason to assume the best wasn’t blind optimism, there just wasn’t a valid alternative. It was weird seeing them handle even the most stressful situation, and not thinking of them as a couple of dorks.

“We’re like knights,” said Dudley, “on a quest to save the princesses.”

Although the dorks were always there, just under the surface. “You think of them as princesses?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

Having met a real princess, I didn’t see it as something to aspire to.

“Knights saving princesses, it’s a bit of a sexist stereotype, isn’t it?” Probably also a category on Pornhub.

“No,” said Maurice. “They’d do the same for us. They already have done.”

We reached the river in about half an hour and followed it east. The ground was rockier and we had to clamber over the craggy banks. The water rushed past, oblivious to our concerns.

“There,” said Dudley. “I see something.” He was pointing to the other side of the river.

I couldn’t see anything through the trees, but I trusted his sharp eyes. There was a shallow area of water ahead with large slabs of rock to use as stepping stones. They were a good distance apart and looked slippery. It would take a decent athlete to navigate them successfully. We didn’t even bother, and waded across.

Dudley led the way to a clearing, in the middle of which was a tower. It looked very much like the crappy drawing, with battlements ringing its top like crone’s teeth. It was made of stone blocks and had the look of a building that had been there for a hundred years, firmly planted in its surroundings. There were no windows that I could see, but there was a door. I banged on it with my fist.

After a few seconds, I banged again. Then Maurice used the pommel of his short sword.

“Alright, alright,” shouted a crotchety voice. An opening at head height slid aside revealing two beady eyes. It looked like an old man, although it was hard to tell what he looked like through the slit, which only showed the eyes and some bushy white eyebrows. “What do you want?”

Now that we had found our first objective, our simple and clearly worked out plan didn’t seem so clear or all that well worked out.

“Um,” I began, and then faltered.

“What? Hurry up, I’m very busy.”

“They want us to kill you,” said Maurice in a rush of words.

“Who does? Kill me? What are you talking about?”

“They took our women hostage and said they’ll only give them back if we murder you,” said Dudley. Blunt, but to the point.

“Did they? Did they, now?” He didn’t seem all that surprised.

“Yes,” I said. “Do you know who they are?”

“Of course I know,” the man shouted through the slot, lifting his mouth to get his words out clearly and showing us his large white teeth. “Those dumb bastards. Think they can bully me out of my home. You tell them to go to hell.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Where do you think they are? In their village, sitting around their warm fires and drinking themselves silly. No invite for old Joshaya. Nothing but dirty looks and nasty gossip, that’s all I ever get.”

“Are you a wizard?” asked Maurice.

“Me? A wizard?” He sounded shocked. “What would make you think that?”

“Well, they called this Wizard’s Tower.”

“Yes?”

“So, we thought there might be a wizard here,” said Maurice patiently.

The man’s eyes narrowed like he was trying to decipher Maurice’s words. “No, no, no. Not wizard. Wiz Ard. That was my master’s name. He built this tower. Wiz Ard’s Tower.”

“And was he a wizard?” I asked, suspecting I was dealing with an idiot. I recognised the signs from experience. Lots and lots of experience.

“Not as far as I know. I mean, he could do a few tricks, blow things up and make things move around with his special words, but nothing magical. Although, now that you mention it, he did like dressing up in a big robe and a pointy hat, just to scare off the locals.” He chuckled to himself. “Those were the days.”

“He’s not here anymore?” asked Maurice.

“No, he’s not. He’ll be back though, once he finishes his business in Gorgoth. You tell them villagers, no one is allowed in the tower until my master returns. Not one foot!” He slammed the small opening shut.

I knocked on the door again. The gap slid open. “Hello, how can I—Oh, it’s you again.”

It was hardly going to be anyone else.

“You didn’t tell us how to get to the village,” I reminded him.

“Oh, that. Just keep going north, you can’t miss the sounds of joy and merriment.” He sounded disgusted by the very thought. “And if you see the mayor, kick him in the balls!” The little door slammed shut again.

We stood there for a moment, taking in what he’d said, trying to figure out what it meant in terms of the next part of our quest to save the damsels.

“Maybe we should kill him,” said Dudley.

“He didn’t seem that bad,” said Maurice, considering it. “A bit annoying.”

We agreed to keep it as an option and headed north.

There were no sounds of merriment. We came over a slight rise and looked down on the village. There were thatched roofs with smoking chimneys, whitewashed walls and pretty little gardens. And in the middle was a square with a green. There were three piles of wood, each stacked around a stake in the ground, and three girls tied to each stake. Our girls.

A crowd of people sat in a circle around the girls. Men, women and children, dressed in simple peasant clothes. Among them were armed men holding lit torches, ready to set fire to the wood and burn the girls alive like witches. Knowing the girls as I did, I could understand the mistake.

“At least they’re alive,” I said. “And they look unharmed.”

“Yes,” said Maurice. “We’re still going to kill them.”

“Agreed,” said Dudley, taking an arrow out and placing it on the string of his bow. “We’re going to kill them all.”