Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (38 page)

“All right, all right, no need to shout.”

Blarfunder picked up the door as if it weighed nothing and threw it like a Frisbee across the landscape. Under the door were several cloth bags, which the Dwarf dragged out into the middle of the courtyard.

“Now go back to…” began the Dwarf and then realized that Blarfunder had raised a questioning eyebrow, which was not the easiest thing for a rhino’s head to do. “I mean, please go back to keeping lookout.”

“Happy to,” said Blarfunder and returned to his post. Ian was running laps around the courtyard while Crushnut was standing at one end of the courtyard using less than one percent of his brain. Blarfunder assumed his position at the other end of the courtyard and proceeded to look mean.

Rumpelstiltskin felt a shimmer of excitement creep up his spine and tickle his brain. This was it. What he’d started all that time ago was finally going to be finished. The stupid blood of the White Rabbit would mean nothing and there’d be a whole new world to terrorize without being hindered by the Agency. After the regulators were removed from the doors, they’d be far too busy dealing with the hundreds of people falling through doors to worry about little old Rumpelstiltskin.

He began to unpack the necessary ingredients for the spell with a maniacal grin pasted across his face.

Robert couldn’t determine if it was the warm-blooded nature of the creature he was straddling or if he’d wet himself. In his opinion, it could go either way. He’d come extremely close to passing out after initial take-off as the Demon had carried him up and up through the clouds, high above the Earth until his head spun. He couldn’t be certain but he almost thought he could hear the voice in his head laughing with excitement, and that simple fact made him certain that the voice was not a part of him.

He’d wished with all sincerity that the creature would stop climbing and glide back down to a reasonable height. Which it did. After that, it all seemed so easy. It took the simplest thoughtful urge to tell the Demon what to do and which way to go and even how to do it. Every so often, the Demon would let out a
skkrraccchha
or a
sccraaahtatatata,
but even that had ceased to irritate Robert as he fully began to appreciate the feeling of flying. Forty-eight hours ago, he was an accountant working in a cubicle, sitting comfortably in a one-sided relationship with a nice girl, he had an apartment and a landlady; he visited his adoptive mother every other weekend. He was boring. Now he was racing above the world of Thiside on the back of Screech Demon in pursuit of an evil wish-granting Dwarf who threatened to twist reality inexplicably. He was in the company of a beautiful werewolf. He’d been attacked by bandits and Mermaids. He’d met a giant White Rabbit and a wizard. He’d jumped through reality as if it was an everyday chore. He’d been injured and healed, buried alive, and almost burned to death. He’d very briefly owned a cat. And most importantly, he now knew this was his home. This was where he was born. And no matter what the outcome, this was where he was determined to stay.

“That’s if you make it out of all this alive,” said the voice.

“What do you mean?” shouted Robert over the wind that was rushing by.

“You don’t have to shout, I’m in your head.”

“Sorry.”

“I mean that this is where you’ll stay as long as you survive whatever it is Rumpelstiltskin’s going to do to you.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“Sorry, I broke your train of thought.”

“No, it’s okay. Good to be brought back to reality, thanks,” said Robert, but didn’t mean it.

Lily finally caught up to him.

“You’re going in the wrong direction!” she shouted.

“Oh,” said Robert, “Sorry!” he shouted back and thought to the Demon to turn itself around, which it did with grace and finesse and shot itself forward with powerful wings. Lily flew above and to his left.

“You’re very good at this,” she yelled.

“What can I say? I’m a natural,” he shouted back.

Lily looked beautiful. Her hair, which was still filthy from the graveyard, whipped around her head and her amber eyes blazed as the sun set and twilight swept across the land.

“How long until we get there?” he shouted.

Lily pointed ahead. Rushing toward them in the distance across the darkening horizon was a line of shimmering green.

Villages and settlements flew by beneath them as the Demons propelled themselves over the land. It felt to Robert as if the Demons barely used their wings but flew under their own volition and only used their wings for an occasional burst of speed. He looked at Lily again.

“You should tell her,” said the voice in his head.

“Tell her what?” said Robert.

“How you feel.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I seriously need to spell it out for you?”

“You want me to tell her now?”

“Why not?”

“We’re flying hundreds of feet above the ground, racing toward the ruins of the Emerald City and who knows what else.”

“Can you think of a better time?”

Robert couldn’t.

“Lily!” shouted Robert.

Lily looked over as the last remnant of sunlight slipped across her features before the sun nosedived beneath the horizon.

“I think I love you!” shouted Robert.

The look she gave him was not what he expected. It looked like she was about to smile but then she instantly looked worried and then screamed, “Look out!” which wasn’t exactly the combination of words he was hoping for.

A chunk of green masonry the size of a garbage can flew between them, clipping one wing of Lily’s Screech Demon, which screamed and plummeted toward the ground.

“Lily!” shouted Robert but didn’t have time to see if she was okay as another piece of masonry was thrown from somewhere on the ground, causing Robert’s Demon to flip sideways. Robert flailed at the reins as he slid from the saddle and fell from the creature.

Oshitoshitoshitoshit!
was the mantra that flew smoothly through his mind. It was probably just a play of light, or maybe the adrenaline, or possibly the feeling of absolute horror, but it felt less like falling to Robert and more like the world was rushing toward him to smash him into little pieces.
So this is how it ends
. He fondly hoped that Lily was okay, and then, in a glimmer of hope, he thought that maybe his Demon would come and retrieve him. That same balloon of hope was quickly popped when he saw his Screech Demon falling unconscious out of the sky not far away from him. Thoughts, questions, and memories jumbled quickly through his mind as the world rushed to meet him:
Who is my father? Am I dating a werewolf?
A Dwarf in his bathtub. Lily’s eyes. A hippopotamus in a tutu. Buried in a coffin. The halfway house burning around him and the kitten appearing in the fireplace.
Shit!
And then he hit the ground.

The courtyard was decorated with intricate symbols that looked like they’d been drawn in blood. The air crackled like arcing electricity as the magical field began to stir and the spell was woven. It was a complex spell with no room for mistakes. The Dwarf knew that such a powerful spell posed a danger when performed in such a large magical field, but it was the magical field that powered the spell. As it turned out, magic had a strong sense of irony.

Rumpelstiltskin was reading incantations from the scraps of paper he’d stolen from the Wizards’ Council library when Crushnut grunted in surprise.

“Wotz that?” said Blarfunder, and Ian skidded to a stop next to him.

“Looks like a couple of dragons,” said Ian.

Rumpelstiltskin finished the incantation he was reading and looked up into the sky where his idiot henchmen were staring.

“Those are too small for dragons,” said the Dwarf, squinting. A sense of panic kicked him in the frontal lobe. “Those are Agents!”

“That’s silly,” said Blarfunder, “Agents don’t have wings.”

“They’re riding Screech Demons!” screamed the Dwarf, jumping up and down. “Kill them!”

“Now, where’s your manners?” said Blarfunder, wagging his finger.

“What?” sputtered the Dwarf.

“What’s the magic word?”

The Dwarf made a quick mental note to kill his henchmen at the first available opportunity.

“Please kill them!” he shrieked.

“Yes, sir!” said Blarfunder and picked up a massive piece of masonry and threw it at the approaching pair of Demons as if it were a pebble. Crushnut began searching through the rubble to find his own rock to throw.

Blarfunder’s throw hit one of the Demon’s wings and it plummeted toward the ground over a hundred feet away. Crushnut found a piece of rock he liked and with one hand threw it with the dexterity of an Olympian at the second Demon, which dodged it, but lost its rider in the process. Blarfunder’s second chunk of masonry hit the creature square in the chest and it fell to the ground.

Not bad
. Maybe he wouldn’t kill them after all.
Maybe I’ll just maim them a little
.

“You, with the legs,” said Rumpelstiltskin to Ian, “run off and make sure they’re both dead.”

Ian nodded and ran off.

The Dwarf returned to his incantations. Thanks to the greenish glow of the emerald stones and the forceful magical field, the ruins were never completely black, even as twilight began to slip away and the sky turned dark. Everything shone with a luminescent green.

As he read the incantations, the symbols he’d drawn on the courtyard began to glow. The dragon’s tooth, the other items he’d procured before being incarcerated in the Tower, and the remains of the last Bastinda sat in the middle of the courtyard.

The air began to feel heavy and the wind began to pick up. Rumpelstiltskin danced around the symbols as he continued reading. Something snapped at the edge of the courtyard, and the Dwarf looked up to see a doorway appear. It shimmered and floated and represented everything about Thiside that the Dwarf hated. He was about to dismiss it with a sneer when Jack stepped out the door. He looked angry.