This is the sixth (and last) in a series of posts wherein I have presented a novel I started writing in high school. Please read the introduction post (link) for an explanation.
The crowd was beginning to disperse. The same boy who had stopped to stare at the stage had finally grown weary of staring at the once interesting stage. He walked away in search of a restroom, not because he was in need of the facilities; he just thought that a group of people standing around the restroom would look funnier than a group of people standing around the stage. The size of the crowd was diminishing but was still fairly large when Omar finally leaped to the stage.
Omar, once again wearing the gaudy clothing he had worn upon arriving at the city, spoke in a very dramatic speech. Everything he said made people think that he had written, revised, rewritten, and rehearsed every word. This was untrue. Omar had only written it once; he had made Joe revise it.
As the crowd noticed that something actually was occurring on the stage, each face in the crowd scrutinized the site before their eyes. A fearful silence fell across the crowd. The fear of a clown actually within a few feet of them was too much to handle. Many collapsed to the ground as they fainted. Others were scared stiff to where they couldn't move. One started laughing. Someone knocked him cold for his own safety.
Clowns are the second most feared humanoid in the whole galaxy. Ataxian history is split into ages, somewhat like a millennium. The ages are referred to by the name of an animal. This has caused enormous strife in past years as historians argued whether the present age was the age of the Fruitbat or the Ostrich. The last age before the age of the Fruitbat/Ostrich was the age of the Rubber Chicken, a horrific time when clowns ruled on high. A few older residents of Ataxia still remember the horrible age. The clowns were expelled from civilization by a large group of revolutionists to a remote planet in Ataxia. The planet had but one exit, which was sealed by strong magicks.
The most feared humanoid of the galaxy is remembered for the time when they roamed free, or The Great Silence. Mimes can occasionally be seen in the wilderness and are often found attempting to reenter the cities from which they were expelled.
Once the crowd calmed down a bit they noticed a few obvious differences between Omar and your average clown. Firstly, it is common knowledge that no clown will ever wear polyester. Clowns may wear baggy cloths, big shoes, and big red noses, but they still have some sense of fashion. Omar's outfit was made of 100% polyester. The second difference was the apparent absence of floppy shoes and a little flower that squirts water.
Omar spoke to the assembled crowd, "I see all your sad faces out there. I can tell that you are all in need of something." The something was probably a good day's wages, or in the case of Mary, a pony. "You need a cure."
Omar paused to let that last remark set in. The people nodded in agreement. "Yeah," they thought. "We need a cure." A man ventured the naive question, "A cure for what?" He was greeted with several Shh's.
"You need a cure for everything. And I have it." He held a bottle of the miracle elixir high. "This little bottle will cure any ailment a person can imagine." What he didn't tell him was the person he was speaking of was Ben Helpur, who had been dead for the past 10 years and wasn't imagining much of anything.
The crowd erupted in a chorus of ahh's. Omar was pleased; they were stupider than he had imagined.
Lister wasn't paying much attention, and due to her inability to pay anything other than the plumber, Mary wasn't paying much attention, either. His gaze was centered on a man who had just entered the crowd. He was dressed much like Lister and appeared to be up to no good. The man wandered through the crowd requesting people for money.
"Mary, I think we found picket-line breaker."
"Don't ask me for help. Me not know how to put line back together."
Omar was well under way telling the crowd about all the many ailments that could be cured by a single drop of his miracle elixir. He smiled to himself as he took in the stupid looks on the people's faces. A large sale was guaranteed with a crowd like this.
Joe had just begun his performance. His clothing had been replaced with the average clothing of a common leper. Not to say that there is anything extremely common about a leper. Lepers have never been able to make a very good living on planets which believe in embalming. In such places, people are continuously mistaking lepers for mummies, which isn't especially good for business. The lepers there have made the best of the situation by throwing curses at people who don't give them money. Joe could easily have passed off as a mummy, expect for his abundance of life not usually found in mummies.
Joe wandered through the crowd pretending to have as many illnesses as he could conceive. "Please mam," he said to a woman in the crowd. "Spare a coin for a poor destitute leper?"
"Oh you poor man. Of course I'll give you some money." The woman searched around in her handbag. She frowned as she obviously couldn't find what she searching for. She pulled a small card from the bag and said, "Do you take credit?"
Joe waved the card away and coughed as he replied, "That's all right. *cough* I'll be fine. *COUGH*"
"That's good enough proof for me," a voice said as it walked towards Joe. "Ok Mary, smash his head in!"
Mary lumbered through the crowd towards Joe. "Sorry." was the lost thing that Joe heard before Mary's fist planted itself on the top of his head.
The woman shrieked from the sight of the poor leper being knocked to the ground. "That poor man," she began. "Why did you have to go and strike. . ." She was knocked unconscious before she could finish her sentence.
Lister looked from Mary to the woman's prone body in the mud, then back at Mary, then back at the body, then at the sun. Staring at the sun always made Lister sneeze and he felt like sneezing. This he did, it made Lister feel good, but he knew there wasn't time to feel good. He and Mary had to make a swift exit.
At just that moment, Omar reached the point in his performance where he showed the crowd the amazing healing power of the miracle elixir. He turned to the fleeing Lister and said as sympathetic as possible, "Oh you poor man."
Lister, who hadn't been paying attention to anything that had been occurring, was shocked when he saw the tip of Omar's pointer finger facing right towards him. Lister made a motion as if to say, "Who? Me?"
"Yes you, my poor leprous friend."
Lister had no desire whatsoever to come anywhere near that stage, but the crowd had a big affect on his decision. The crowd grabbed him and tossed him onto stage. Well, not exactly. They missed by a few feet; his chin landed on the stage though. Lister turned to make another run for it, but it was obvious that he was completely trapped by the crowd. Giving in, he climbed up onto the stage.
Omar grabbed Lister's arm so as to position him in the most visible location for the crowd. If Omar had actually looked at the leper's face, he would have known that this specimen was not Joe. If this had happened, the occurrence would have been followed by a few frantic moments of silence as Omar contemplated his quickest escape. This did not happen though. Rather, Omar smiled at the crowd as if to say, "You guys are complete idiots, and I'll soon have your money." Being the complete idiots that they were, they translated the smile as, "I'm so happy that I can help you poor people."
"My poor leprous friend," he addressed Lister. "Because of your sad state, I will give you a free bottle of my miracle elixir."
Lister licked his lips at the thought of a free drink. Omar popped the cork off the elixir. Lister didn't need so much as a signal as he began downing the liquid. It tingled as it started to spread through his system. Lister paused halfway through the bottle to reflect on his new feeling. It felt as if for an instant his entire body went numb, then, instantly came back alive. The bizarre thing was that once the numbness was gone from his body, he felt revitalized to a level that he hadn't felt previously. Lister stood motionless as he contemplated the tingling in his body.
Omar swiped the bottle from Lister's hand. "Now we see what the amazing miracle elixir has done for this poor leper. Omar began unraveling the bandages that hid Lister's sore-covered body. Lister would have objected to the man undressing him, but he was still trying to get used to the new feeling that was sweeping through his whole bodily frame. Also, Lister didn't have to worry because he was wearing a white undershirt and some very sporty boxers with little dragons all over.
Finally, once the wrapping was totally removed, Omar realized, the person he had just "cured" was not Joe Smiley. This would have caused him to panic and flee, had it not been for the fact that the man who had been dressed as a leper turned out to be just that, a man dressed as a leper. No open sores could be found anywhere on the body. Their was a small scar on Lister's forearm shaped like a cloud, but apart from that, he looked perfectly healthy.
Lister's feeling was beginning to subside as a new feeling entered his body, the feelings of disappointment, anger, fear, and embarrassment all wrapped together. His awful body, the one he was always having to piece back together was completely healthy. A tear came to his eye. The small cloud of flees that accompanied him most everywhere dispersed.
The crowd broke into an enormous round of applause and cheers. People began yelling for bottles and waving money in the air. Lister was returned to the crowd in much the same way as he left the crowd, with a swift kick to rear.
Lister stayed in the pile of mud in which he had landed. It made him feel a little more comfortable. Mary attempted to help him up, but he had no desire to do anything but lie in the mud. All the while, people scrambled to get a bottle of Omar's amazing miracle elixir.
Magic. It's what makes the world go round. It's what makes the stars come up at night. It's what makes the sun rise and fall every day. Actually, that's only one theory. There are some heated debates occurring presently about what does make the sun rise and fall every day. The wizards swear that it's the magical field that surrounds every planet. Scientists contend that it's caused by some sort of daily explosion or, in their own words, a fairly big bang. The clergymen insist that the sun is dragged through the sky by a God, called the Great Willy Winky, wearing a large bowtie.
A heated argument has ensued for years concerning this question. Each party has fought the sympathy of the public. The whole issue is nearing an end. For the most part, the populous has chosen to side with the church. This is for a couple reasons. First, if you don't side with the church they'll probably get you with some sort of inquisition. And, the church's idea of the Great Willy Winky was recently popularized a song which hit the top five in every prominent city of Ataxia. Part of the chorus goes:
Great Willy Winky runs cross the sky.
Upwards and Downwards in his bowtie.
Realizing that they have lost the argument on what controls the sun's rise and fall, the wizards have dedicated their strength towards another effort. Namely, they dedicated their time to convincing the populous that magic is responsible for pickles.
Magic has needed improve its appearance in the eyes of the people. Everyone is always leery of magic. This is O.K. for most wizards. Who needs friends when you are the most powerful being on the planet. The problem with this is that Ataxian magic has yet to evolve to the strength of magic in other galaxies.
Ataxia has evolved at a much slower rate than most galaxies. The God of a planet is always responsible for prodding evolution along by doing stuff like planting big stone monoliths in front of monkey homes and giving someone the idea to invent slushies. Once civilization is going, Gods just have to sit around being worshipped and cause a tornado or two.
Evolution on Ataxia didn't work that simple. The Gods knew that they were supposed to build some big thing but couldn't remember that it was a monolith. Instead, they gave the inhabitants of Ataxia a big watermelon. While being very appreciated down below, it didn't help evolution. Ataxian residents have been forced to evolve almost completely by themselves. This causes some problems.
Magic's evolution has been a rough one in the hands of incompetent humanoid creatures. Magic is used by the commanding of the elements. With control of the elements one can have untold of power. Ataxian wizards are unable to control any element at all. They perform magic by requesting the element for what they want. This seems it would be fine, except for the elemental spirits.
Elemental spirits invisibly wander the worlds. They have full power of the elements. A wizard does not actually control the elements, but controls the elemental spirit. Their are many spirits walking across the planets and they move instantaneously to any point on the planet. Some stronger wizards will even have their own spirit which will come to them whenever they're needed. They work fine for the needs of evolved magicians, but have grown to be a major pain for Ataxian magicians.
Apart from having great power, elemental spirits are very rude and snobby creatures. They enjoy talking back to wizards when they try to cast spells. This doesn't make for very fast combat if you're pleading with an elemental spirit to create a fireball. The elemental spirits speak normally, but have a channeling power with their voice which allows them to be heard by only one or two people.
Elemental spirits are also very stubborn. They demand that wizards be polite. If wizards aren't polite to the spirits, they won't even bother responding. This is the most important element of Ataxian magic, the art of being polite to elemental spirits. Studying acolytes spend hours in their small cubicles at wizard's school practicing their politeness on such things as plants and doorknobs. Politeness to elemental spirits involves the same old stuff like, always say thank-you, always hold the door open for them, and don't cast a spell with your mouth full. The most important part of being polite to an elemental spirit is encapsulated in the word, "Bica."
Bica, pronounced beeka, is the arcane word for "please." Bica must always be said just before or just after the magic words are said. No spell would even be considered if it was not prefixed or suffixed with Bica.
Because of the need for politeness the rudeness of elemental spirits when attempting to cast a spell, the galaxy has never had to worry too much about magic getting too powerful. While magic can do some great damage in the wrong hands, it's repairable.
Melzar awoke with a jerk. If you would have asked Melzar, the jerk was Gord, but that isn't what I meant. What I meant was that Melzar awoke suddenly. He stood up in the small tent. Too small for Melzar to stand up actually. Instead, he had to crouch, which just wasn't the powerful figure message he was trying to get across. Gord hung helplessly from Melzar's arm, snoring.
As if he were speaking to an enormous crowd of his loyal subjects, he announced, "I had a dream."
'Hmm,' thought Melzar. "That sounded good! Let me try do that again."
Once again Melzar announced in a booming voice, "I had a dream."
Melzar's pleasure was interrupted by Gord's rather rude voice. "Master, I get the idea. You had a dream. But what was it about?!?"
Melzar glanced around embarrassingly. "Dream? Right. . . my dream."
Gord stared inquisitively at Melzar. At least, Melzar thought it was inquisition in Gord's stare. It's hard to tell with a puppet. Actually, the stare was just Gord looking tired.
"Well, I had a dream. . ."
"Master, we established that."
"We did? Oh yah, we did!"
Melzar was not a morning person. We thought he was, but he definitely wasn't. Actually, we wasn't an anytime person.
"Well, I dreamed that I was to conquer Slander by turning the populous into lepers unless they bow down and worship me as their king." Melzar stated this very triumphantly.
Incredibly, Gord was excited. Then again, if Melzar were the king, maybe Gord would be a duke or even better, a duchess. Gord responded excitedly, "Master, that's wonderful! So, in your dream you were told you would become the king of Slander?"
The gleam in Melzar's eye disappeared with Gord's degleaming statement. Gord noticed the drop in enthusiasm in Melzar's demeanor.
"Master, what's wrong? You should be joyous!"
Melzar had hoped that Gord wouldn't bring this up. "Actually, the dream told me that I would be unsuccessful."
Gord looked in udder surprise at Melzar. "Master, with all due respect, what?!? You aren't going to succeed?"
"Nope."
"Master, and you still plan to go on with it?"
"Yep."
"Master, that's dumb!"
Melzar knew Gord wouldn't understand. Handpuppets just don't understand this sort of thing. Then again, Melzar didn't understand it very well either. If he had been thinking straight, he would have gone home and forgotten about the whole thing. What stopped him from leaving was the last thing which HAzburn told him. He couldn't remember what it was exactly; all he could remember was something about movie rights. Melzar had no idea what movie rights meant, but he wanted to know, and going to Slander was the only way he would find out.
"I can't quite explain it," began Melzar rather sheepishly. "It has to do with something called movie rights."
"Master, movie rights? What is a movie rights?"
"I'm not sure, but that is why I need to go to Slander. I must discover movie rights."
Gord did not want to pursue it any longer, neither did Melzar. Gord was beginning to see his dream of becoming a duchess slowly seeping away.
"Master, if we are to go turn people into lepers in Slander, how do we get there?"
"The portal," responded Melzar rather simply.
"Master, beg your pardon, but we don't know where the portal is, remember?"
Before Melzar could respond--not that he was planning to respond--the bottom of the tent was torn completely in half. The object causing the tent bottom to rip was the same object which was about to cause the tent top to rip apart. The object threw Melzar back as it ascended from the ground.
The object was made entirely of wood planks nailed together. The structure looked large enough to hold one person--two in the case of Gord and Melzar. The object looked like a small house. The top came to a point and resembled a roof. The door was made from the same sort of rotten wood that the rest of the structure was constructed of. The door had one difference. A small moon shaped sigil cut through the otherwise plain wood face.
Gord stared in awe at the thing which was now occupying the largest portion of the tent. What it was, he didn't know. He just thought that it looked interesting. After all, Gord had no idea how they were able to get those little rainbow-colored marshmellows to float in jello, but he still liked the taste.
Melzar, on the otherhand, knew exactly what it was. Dusting himself off with Gord's face, Melzar stood erect, causing the point of his hat to poke through the tent roof, or rather, would have poked through the tent roof had the roof not been ripped apart. Melzar spoke in a low tone so as to prevay a sense of mysticism. "The portal." Instead, he prevayed a sense of talking quietly.
