Death by Cliché (20 page)

“Where are we going?” Omar asked.

“I’ll figure something out,” Damico said, smiling at Lotianna.

“Damico!” a voice shouted in the distance.

Damico stared down the road, and Gorthander groaned. Damico shared a glance with Lotianna then raised his voice and said, “Jurkand.”

Jurkand carried a sword that didn’t fit his scabbard, balancing it on one shoulder as he traipsed down the road like Andy of Mayberry. If you whistle while he walks, it might take you back.

“Damico!” Jurkand cried again and jogged until he met them, his middle-aged brow sweating with the effort.

Damico smiled despite himself.

“You died. Again.”

“One-shot resurrection charm,” Jurkand said, holding up a bauble on a leather thong.

“I thought you already used that.”

“I had more than one,” Jurkand said dismissively.

“Greetings, aged master.” Arithian bowed. “It is good to see you escaped from the depredations of the foul dungeon. What’s up?”

“He probably came for his sword,” Damico said to Omar.

“Oh,” Omar said, pulling it from where he’d strapped it to his pack.

He tossed it to Jurkand who caught and sheathed it before tossing the other sword to Omar, who unslung his pack and strapped the sword in place. That made five major weapons by a cursory count.

“There’s another thing, of course,” Jurkand said.

Damico nodded. “Hraldolf.”

“He was gone when I came around.”

“You knew he had come to the cell?” Arithian asked.

“It took me a long time to die.”

“Sorry about that,” Gorthander muttered, looking away.

Damico squinted suspiciously. Jurkand hadn’t moved or gurgled during the visit. If he was still alive, had he been playing dead on purpose? That whole scene still seemed contrived.

“Anyway, I think he’s still trying to get the Artifact,” Jurkand said. “He doubled his searchers, he’s scouring the countryside.”

“So, he hasn’t found it yet,” Damico said. “Don’t know why we were supposed to look in his fortress for something he hadn’t found.”

“I told you,” Gorthander said. “It’s a
stupid
adventure.”

“But now that he’s got more men looking, he’ll find it sooner,” Damico said.

“And destroy the world,” Jurkand said.

“What exactly does this Artifact do?” Arithian asked. “Prithee,” he added as an afterthought.

“It allows the wielder to change reality,” Jurkand said. “With it, he could unravel this world.”

Damico went cold. The pieces fell into place. The Artifact… it could change reality. It could destroy the world. A world he had once hated. A world in which he’d found peace and filled with people he’d given life.

A world in which he’d been trapped.

He hadn’t seen it before because it was such a well-worn trope. Of
course
the villain was going to destroy the world. That’s what villains
did
. It was one of the oldest plots in gaming. The world is going to be destroyed, the ultimate threat. An easy way for the GM to make it seem like there was a lot at stake. No trouble for him. If the bad guy won, you just started a new game next week.

The Artifact. The world. It all came together now.

Damico’s legs grew shaky, and he stumbled, falling to the dusty road. Lotianna rushed to his side, Jurkand watched him, confused.

But Damico’s head swam, his gut plummeted. The angels of his better nature gave up and flew off to have a good lie-down somewhere. His hands shook. He vomited into the ditch.

“Damico.” Lotianna’s voice filled with concern. “Are you all right?”

Better to ask if a grieving widow was all right. Better to ask if the orphaned child was all right. All right. He was so far beyond all right the light from all right dopplered into deep maroon. All right.

“I’m fine,” he wheezed.

How could he be all right? He’d figured it out. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He knew with the same certainty one knows his spouse is cheating on him. He knew. He understood. It all made perfect sense.

All he had to do to escape this world was let Hraldolf win. He could get out of here, escape this place, if only he were willing to destroy it. It and all those people he’d somehow brought to life.

He was still alive out there, he could feel that now. His soul would return to his body. He would regain strength. He hadn’t died yet. He’d get out of here. He’d recover from the coma. He’d get his life back.

And all he had to do was let everyone die.

Chapter
Thirty
-Four

“Not for internal consumption.”

—Bob Defendi

er name was Grovalon. You should be used to it by
now.

“Honey,” her husband shouted. “I’m home.”

It’s the type of line we hear every day… if we watch Nick at Night or TV Land. The kind of ‘50s home life that only exists if you’re a TV actor. Or stoned on Quaaludes. Or a TV actor stoned on Quaaludes.

She walked out of the kitchen and into the house’s main room. Benches and ladder-backed chairs surrounded the main floor, the entire place decorated in suitably pseudo-medieval style. This was a fantasy world, after all.

Dust covered every surface because Grovalon’s method of cleaning house was to sweep the room with a glance. She didn’t even leave the shutters open.

Her husband probably had a name, but she’d replaced it long ago with terms of endearment. Her favorite was “worm.”

“Worm,” she said.

“We did well at the smithy today,” he said brightly.

She couldn’t stand him. He was like that little piece of popcorn stuck between tooth and gum. He was the person that speeds up the moment you switch on your blinker. The ingrown hair in the anus of Humanity.

“I’m sure you did your putrid little best, you son of a bitch,” she said. “Now, make me dinner.”

He looked like he was going to try to argue with her, the pusillanimous little bug. She would have to make him pay tonight.

And she didn’t feel the line between Damico and the Artifact. She didn’t feel it because it didn’t pass over her. It passed over her husband.

“What did you say?” His eyes lit up in a way she’d never seen before.

“I said ‘make me dinner, you son of a bitch.’”

And he smiled. That was strange.

“Yes, dear,” he said.

“And then clean the house.”

“Yes, dear.” Stranger still.

“And then do the laundry.”

His voice quivered with pleasure. “Yes dear.”

What was going on with him?

And then a thought hit her. “Come here. Worm.”

He stepped in close.

“On your knees.”

He fell to his knees.

And she smiled too.

Chapter
Thirty
-Five

“This quote was brought to you by the emergency broadcast system. If this had been an actual quote—wait! What?”

—Bob Defendi

he new mask didn’t fit like a glove, but it fit like a
mask.

Hraldolf stood at the top of a hill, watching one of his villages. The peasants swarmed out of the place like cockroaches in your college apartment. Well, maybe they didn’t swarm. They trudged. But the whips helped.

A vast swamp lay to the north of the village, and the peasants moved into it now. They carried shovels and baskets. They searched amid bugs that sounded like a fleet of Zeros swarming in on Pearl.

“They seem lethargic, Not Beaver,” Hraldolf said. He didn’t bother checking if Not Beaver was there.

“They are, Your Majesty,” Not Beaver said, magically at his elbow.

Not Beaver was everywhere, like grass. Or opinions. Or reality shows.

“Why do you think they’re like that?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

“Do you think they’re trying to foil my evil plan?”

“You haven’t
told
them your evil plan, Your Majesty.”

“You have a point there.”

“You haven’t told me either.”

“We must be careful.”

“That’s right, Your Majesty. You can trust me about as far as you can roll me.”

Hraldolf smiled. Not Beaver was the perfect Yes-Man. He hadn’t disagreed with Hraldolf, but with a one-percent slope and a stern word, you could roll Not Beaver for miles. At least until the fat ablated off his body.

“They say they haven’t eaten, Your Majesty.”

Hraldolf nodded. That was the type of thing peasants would say.

But then again…

“We have the army here, right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Call the peasants in. Feed them.”

“That might make them soft, Your Majesty.”

“Bones are hard, but they don’t dig very fast.”

“Unless you make them into a shovel, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t get cute.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Your Majesty.”

Not Beaver had him there. The man was ugly enough to scare the stink off sheep.

“Just do it.”

Not Beaver gave the order to whatever sycophants kissed
his
ass, and they passed the orders and so forth. Soon, the people were eating. An hour later, the peasants moved back out into the swamp, if not vigorously, then with a bit more spring in their step.

“Brilliant, Your Majesty,” Not Beaver said.

“Not Beaver?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Shut up.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Now he’d find it that much sooner.

Chapter
Thirty
-Six