Dolph paced the small room and did his best to ignore the noise that filtered in from the restless crowd. Soon it would be his time to enter the arena, and he still hadn’t decided upon a plan of attack.
The Magistral’s had been quite emphatic in their interpretations of the rules; it was a duel to the death and the crowd would accept nothing less. His opponent was Viktor, the magic-immune barbarian who had made a name for himself in dispatching one sorcerer after another, and the dusty soil of the Grand Arena of Carnivohr would be quenched with blood this day.
How do you kill a man who doesn’t flinch at the sight of a fireball, laughs at lightning bolts, and eats demons for breakfast, Dolph wondered?
"You don’t."
The room rang from the chime of an unseen bell as the little goblin materialized, and Dolph turned to face his familiar.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence, Geck."
"Oh drop the ‘woe is me’ attitude, Dolph, this is entirely your fault." The goblin said as he hopped upon a rickety cot. "I told you not to come here but did you listen to me?"
"And when was the last time that you added a copper to our kit, eh, Geck? Falderal the Matchmaker promised that all I’d see was a snowcat or two, so its not like I planned on going eye to eye with a Jute. Bad luck, but this man must have an Achilles heel."
"Whose heel? Say, have you been peeking into that other dimension again, Dolph? Gads man, aren’t you in enough trouble without wasting your energy spying upon that crazy place? And may I inquire as to why you insulted your own intelligence by trusting in Falderal?"
"I know, I made a slight miscalculation there, Geck, but all I’m saying is that this man must have a weak point."
"Listen, my soon-to-be-former friend, the only weak point he might have is an aversion to eating you after he kills you. Other than that, it’s been nice being partners, and while we’re on the subject of eating…"
"Under the tablecloth." Dolph said as he waved his hand in the direction of a wobbly old table. "I don’t have much of an appetite, so take what you want."
"Banapples!" Geck exclaimed as he dove into the heaping plate of fruits. "You sure you don’t want any of this?"
"All yours, Geck, I’m not hungry."
"Wow, you really are upset, aren’t you?" The little grey familiar asked around a mouthful of banapple.
"Yes, funny thing about us humans, we seem to shy away from silly things like dying." Dolph answered as sat down on the lumpy cot.
"Then you should just…yuck, this is terribly over-ripe…anyway, where was I, oh yes, you should just sorcer your way out of this place."
"I do that and there’s not a hamlet in all of Dhunderpate that won't hear about Dolph the Cheat. And besides, he’s just a brainless mountain of muscle, Geck, I know I can find a way to beat him.
"Conjure up a dust dervish and skewer him while he’s blind."
"Won't work. Caladahn the Fantastic tried and the barbarian laughed so hard he almost forgot he was strangling the man. No, he’s a Jute, and they are immune to the point that the dust itself was saturated with magic and didn’t vex him the slightest."
"Well, if I were you I’d run around in circles until he ran out of wind, then jump oh him, and keep jumping until something breaks." The goblin suggested.
"Geck, have you seen who it is that we’re talking about? He’s thirty stone and could snap me in two in his sleep, okay? I don’t want to get anywhere near that brute, so thanks, but no thanks."
"Then I guess you’re a goner, Dolph. Shame too, it’s been what, five years we’ve been together, and don’t think it’s going to be easy for me to find another sorcerer. Not that you’re anything to sing home about, but I almost have an affection for you."
"Six years, and thank you for the high praise. Damn, I won't go down without a fight, there’s got to be a way. Geck."
"Dolph the Wondrous, yer up next!" Rang a voice from outside the room.
"Well, that settles it. They’ll be coming for me soon and I still don’t know what to do. Will you walk out with me, Geck?"
"Of course, let me finish this fruit and I’m at your side as always. Hey, I have an idea! Since the outcome is inevitable, what say you go out there and not blink an eye as he kills you? You know, stand tall, stick out that pointy chin and just dare him to slice you in two. Can you imagine the points I’d score if my sorcerer went to his death like that? Why, they’d be singing songs about Dolph the Brave for at least a month and I’d be in big demand to tell the tale. What do you think, good plan?"
"Wonderful plan, Geck, but I have an even better one; you face the barbarian and I brag about my valiant little goblin."
"Ready in there, Sorcerer?" Another voice called.
"Very funny, Dolph, but the crowd’s paid for Sorcer-tripe, not goblin-guts, so you’d better get it over with while you still have the courage to stand on your hind legs."
"I suppose you’re right." Dolph sighed as he made for the door that opened to the main arena. "Ready to go?"
"Ready if you are, Dolph, and at least do me the courtesy of thinking about my suggestion, please? Better to be remembered as dying well, then as a craven who left us screaming for his Mum."
Dolph shaded his eyes from the noonday sun as he walked out into the dusty arena. The ovation of a thousand voices echoed around him, and even with fear making his every step an exercise in tremor control, he had to admit to a certain excitement.
"See, what did I tell you?" Geck whispered, invisible to all save his sorcerer as they strode to the center of the arena. "How can you disappoint all of these people by snivelling your final moments away? And remember this; if you run without even the illusion of putting up a fight the archer’s will have a fine day at target practice."
"Quiver me as fast as…wait! Geck, I have an idea. Remember the last time you stole over the plane and…"
"I have never ventured into that horrible place, Dolph, how could you suggest such a thing?"
"There isn't the time for protests, Geck, I distinctly remember nursing you back to health after you’d besotted yourself with that potent whisky. Now listen because we haven’t much time."
"No time is more like it Dolph, take a look at your opponent over there." Geck said with a tug of Dolph’s trousers.
A door opened on the opposite end of the arena, and even from the hundred-pace distance Dolph’s legs weakened all the more when he saw what walked out to meet him.
"You sure that’s only one man, Dolph, and not one atop another?" Geck asked as the eight foot tall barbarian entered the arena to an uproar that shook the earth.
"Geck I want you to find something for me." Dolph whispered as the giant approached.
"What? Even if I could find such a thing it would be magical because I brought it here and you couldn’t use it." Geck said after Dolph had described what he would need.
"Maybe not, Geck. If you used your magic to retrieve it, I might be able to use it. Please, it’s the only thing that I can think of, so will you go and try?"
"Well, I still think it’s a useless trip, and not worth the effort. You do know how much energy this is going to take."
"I know, Geck, I know. And I promise to make it up to you somehow. Just get over there and bring it back as fast as you can."
"And what if it doesn’t work and the giant kills you? I’ll have wasted a trip for nothing, and we’re not supposed to go back and forth anytime we want so maybe the next time I get a taste for that whisky I won't be able to…"
"Geck!"
"Okay, okay, I’m going. I’ll be right back so have some consideration and try to stay alive."
With that the little goblin winked out of existence and left Dolph alone to face the barbarian.
"Alright, both a ya’s knows the rules, so lets get the show started before the crowd brings the place down on our heads," The barker said as he waddled over to the two combatants. "I’ll be doin’ the introductions, lads, so try and look ferocious while I does my act."
Dolph stood next to the giant and nodded his agreement while the barker roused the crowd to a fever-pitched frenzy in describing the battle to come.
"…the master of all things sorcery, and undefeated in any arena anywhere…"
Geck had to return soon, Dolph thought as he tried to maintain a semblance of composure.
"…recently kilt himself the famous sorcerer from the east with a single blow…"
…He had to return before this monster got the chance to swing that ridiculously oversized blade.
"…et the innards from the Grand Vizier of Obegone whilst stranglin’ the life from a vicious mountain ape…"
The minutes trickled by, and the crowd was screaming, the giant was laughing, the barker was almost done with his barking, and Dolph was furiously focusing on the item that he had sent Geck to fetch.
"Hurry, Geck, please hurry." Dolph muttered as he stoically stared straight ahead in the general direction of the bare-chested barbarian’s navel.
"So without further ado’s let’s give these lads a big round of applause, and may the best man win!" The barker shouted before trotting away and leaving the two men to stand facing one another in the vast arena.
"Um, okay, well, hello, Viktor, we haven’t been properly introduced, but I’m…yikes!" Dolph shouted as he pulled back his extended hand and ducked away from the quick strike that the Jute had tried to part his hair with.
"Viktor kill little man!" The barbarian roared as he raised the huge sword and charged the now-fleeing Dolph.
"Geck! Damn it all, Geck, where are you?" Dolph shouted to the delight of the screaming crowd.
Surprisingly fast for a big man, the giant kept pace with the sorcerer, his ever-whistling broadsword missing the running sorcerer by a hairsbreadth.
The signature "ping" alerted Dolph to the reappearance of his goblin friend, and he looked down to spy the huffing Geck doing his best to keep up with him.
"This what you wanted?" Geck panted as he held up the thing that he’d brought back from the crazy world.
"No! Whistles and bones, Geck, that’s not even close! That thing is what they call a whover, and it won't do!"
"Well fry me for trying! You said you wanted something with a long snout that made a lot of noise, so what do you expect?" Geck shot back as he ran dragging the strange looking device behind him.
"Listen carefully this time, okay, Geck?" Dolph said as he explained once more and tried a conjurer’s trick to buy time.
"You sure?" Geck asked as he watched a flock of ravens descend upon the barbarian and begin to relieve themselves in a flurry of greenish-white droppings.
The crowd roared its approval at that, and hooted all the louder as the giant slowed to swat at the bothersome birds.
"That and nothing but that, do you hear, Geck?" Dolph shouted as he made use of the diversion and distanced himself from the bewildered Jute.
"That the best you can do, Dolph? Do you think burying him under a shroud of bird dottle is going to stop him for long?"
"No, of course not. I can't do a thing to cause him any real harm Geck, the birds are merely an illusion but he doesn’t know that. Now will you please go before he regains whatever wit he had and comes after me again?"
"Okay, okay, sorry if I am too slow for my high and mighty master. Be back in a nonce, so bide." The little goblin said as he popped out of existence on Dolph’s side of the universe.
Kill little man!" The barbarian screamed as the ravens disappeared.
"Drat and dreck, birds of a feather flee together." Dolph muttered as he increased his pace around the arena, thankful that the giant hadn’t the wit to simply run across and cut him off.
Dolph ran, the Jute followed, and Geck…
Night had fallen on the crazy world, and Geck winked into existence just as the vast trading house was closing its doors for the day. He bided his time near a delivery dock and peeked under an enormous steel door until all of the interior lights were dimmed.
"You got me a whover." He mimicked. "I can't use that, I need something else…complain, complain."
Once Geck was certain that the trading house was unoccupied, he flattened himself and the whover to the thinness of a leaf, slid under the metal door, and dropped off the useless machine where he had found it.
"Almost got myself caught trying to get the thing for him, and do I get any credit?" Geck asked one of the frozen people that populated the large building.
"Lucky for him I’m a faithful goblin companion and not some flighty elf, right, speechless one?"
The frozen being didn’t answer, so Geck hummed a little ditty and went about looking for the device that Dolph so desperately needed. He skipped, he ran, and sometimes even gave in to the urge to levitate just a little until he found himself staring at a glut of the things stored behind a large glass display case.
"Hmm, just like him not to tell me which one he wanted." Geck said to the lifeless form that stood off to the side clutching an equally lifeless fish.
"Oh well, I’ll just have to pick one, and to the pit with him if he doesn’t like my choice this time."
#
It was a race that Dolph knew he could not win.
The crowd was getting restless as the minutes passed. Some already whistling their disapproval as he continued to run for his life. Sooner rather than later the barker would signal for the archers to hamstring him, and even if he had the time he wasn’t sure he had the effort to go on much longer.
Sensing the kill, the barbarian was following at a leisurely pace, posturing to the crowd and looking none the worse for the effort, and for that alone Dolph wanted to wipe that hideous grin from the huge man’s face.
Dolph new that he should have spent more time staying in better physical condition, and less time poring over forgotten lore, but it was academic now, and nothing to do but keep running with the reward in mind to lend him vigor. The very same reward that would tide them for many a season, the glimmer that had shone bright enough to blind his common sense…
"Archers up and prepare to fire."
"Dolph stopped running as soon as he heard the barker’s command, and slowly turned to face his foe. Maybe Geck was right, maybe it was better to die a somewhat noble death rather than a human pincushion to decorate the grand arena.
But Dolph had one final trick to play, a trick he was far from sure would work, but if it did, then it bought him precious time. It all hinged on the delicate balance of magic versus magic resistance, a chancy thing at best. One did not attempt to kill or even injure a Jute, that not only wouldn’t work but the backlash might very well prove fatal as the magic rebounded and snapped about like a taut wire. And while it was true that Caladahn had tried to blind the giant and failed, perhaps his failure was not with the premise, but in the amount of magic used.
"You gonna be runnin’ anymore’s, sorcerer?" The barker shouted over the din of the hissing crowd. "Let me know and tell it true for the archers can't stand at the ready all day long."
The barbarian stopped several paces away, and cocked his head awaiting the answer, and Dolph readied his ruse even as he responded.
"No, I think it is time to stand and fight." The exhausted sorcerer said, much to the delight of the reinvigorated crowd.
The barker signalled for the archers to stand down, and just as the Jute began limbering his sword arm for a delightfully savage thrust, the big man sneezed.
He sneezed again, and again, and he sneezed a fourth time before he had to lower his blade and give in to the convulsions that had seized him.
"Easy now." Dolph whispered as he strove to balance the fine line between harming the giant and merely intensifying the amount of irritants that he force-fed into the barbarian’s nose. If only he could keep the Jute sneezing, he might have a chance to dash in and grab the huge blade.
Dolph approached the man, one step, then another, easy, ever easy and balanced and fine. Just a pace or two more, then a lightning-fast lunge and…"
"Choo!"
Dolph took a knee as the spell rebounded and hammered him with the gods of all sneezes, and the giant recovered in an instant once the spell was drawn away and into the hapless sorcerer.
"Little man die now and die bad!" Viktor growled as he lifted his sword and readied a sweep that would surely lop off an arm.
‘Ping’
"Dolph, hey, Dolph!"
"Geck? Geck is that you?" Dolph asked as he pinched his nose and tried to clear the tears from his eyes.
"No, it’s the Fairy of the Balls come to whisk you away for a dance, of course it is me. And don’t think I am ever going back to that horrible place again. For sure I’ve broken an arm and gods know what else over your fools errand."
Dolph opened his eyes to stare at his dishevelled familiar who stood with one arm in a sling and the other holding…yes, holding the very thing he needed.
"Quickly Geck, give it here!"
"Little man talks to air now?" The Jute laughed as he paused to watch the insane sorcerer.
"Here, Dolph, take the thing and good riddance to bad rubble." Geck said as he handed the device to his friend.
"Is it primed and ready to go?" Dolph asked as he hefted the metal and wood contrivance that he’d seen through the pale but never used.
"Yes it is, and it was only my brilliance that found the way, so that’s another thanks I’ve got coming. Had to awaken one of the frozen people and ask how to ready the thing, so the next time you ask me to fetch for you, please try and be more specific."
"Time for little man to die slow." Viktor said as he pivoted his hips to strike home a horrendous blow. "Hey, what you carry? Where you get…"
The Jute’s words were stifled in mid-growl as Dolph squeezed the small latch and the device let out a resounding boom that was loud enough to quiet the screaming crowd.
"Rain? No cloud so how rain noise?" the huge man asked as he gazed up at the sky.
"No, no, Dolph, you’ve got to point the gadget better and keep it steady as you squeeze. The frozen man I golemed explained that to me right after I broke my arm testing the noisy thing, so take it easy and try again."
"Frozen man? Golem? Geck what are you talking about? Dolph asked as he tried to dismiss the painful throbbing in his arm and steady the unfamiliar weapon.
"See, if only you would get out more often it would do the both of us a world of good, Dolph. I’ll give you all of the details when you have the time to marvel at my genius, but if you wouldn’t mind a bit of advice I think you should kill this brute before my trip is made a waste of time."
Dolph focused on the still puzzled Jute, and squeezed the latch again. The thunder nearly bled his ears, and the wooden brace-thing recoiled with a mind of it’s own to punch into his shoulder.
And the flowers that flew from the long metal tube covered the giant in a profusion of colors.
"Flowers" The barbarian asked as he looked about in wonder. "Pretty flowers?"
"Geck! You filled the tube with flowers?"
"Did not…it should be brimming with the brass sticks! Not my fault that your idea was crazy and the thing doesn’t work over here. Try it again, but you’ve got to admit that the flowers are rather lovely…"
"I can't…Geck the latch is stiff and it won't spring back again. Are you sure that it was full?"
"Of course, how can you ask me that? Not that I put them in myself, it was the golem what did the actual deed him having seen it done a score of times or so he said."
"Then why doesn’t it roar?" Dolph asked as he continued to fumble with the sticky latch.
"How should I know? Maybe you broke it, ever think of that? You were never any good with tools, Dolph, so don’t go blaming me…hey, take a look at big boy."
Dolph looked up and saw the mesmerized Jute standing in a circle of roses and tulips, and shot a surprised look back at his friend.
"Viktor loves pretty flowers. Flowers soft and smelling good." The barbarian cooed as he crushed a fistful of petals to sniff into his nose.
"Wow, who’d have figured him to be a nosegay type of fellow, eh, Dolph?"
"Oh hells and storms!" The sorcerer shouted, and swung the hot and smoking metal up and into the sniffing giant’s nose.
"Oh that’s just wonderful, Dolph. I travel halfway around the heavens to find you a weapon and you use it like a pry bar. I could have stopped at a local smithy and brought back a hammer for all the good…"
Geck’s tirade ended with a wince as the crunching impact drove the giant off his feet.
The crowd remained silent for the space of a heartbeat, then erupted with a deafening roar of approval.
"He’s done?" the goblin shouted over the din. "Just like that? All this running around and the big piece of meat had a crystal jaw?"
The barker came running as soon as the giant’s back touched the ground, and after assuring himself that the big man was unconscious, pointed to the broadsword that the Jute had dropped.
"You know the rules, sorcerer, you got to finish it." He said to the stunned and still sniffling Dolph.
"Finish? What does he mean by finish?" Geck wanted to know.
Dolph didn’t answer as he dropped the flower-shooter and lifted the heavy blade to stand over the prostrate barbarian.
"Oh no, don’t tell me you’re going to…oh Dolph, I can't believe you did that."
"Had to, Geck. Dolph said as he watched the barker impale the decapitated head on a spear.
"That does it for me, I’m weaning myself off of you humans once and for all. There’s going to be a new me, Dolph, I swear it."
"Wean whatever you wish, but lets get to the bursar’s nook before he misplaces our purse, okay, Geck?"
"Gold! Through all of this bloodthirsty nonsense I almost forgot that we are rich! Hoorah the new champion!"
"Happy to see that the new Geck hasn’t lost his affection for riches." Dolph said as he waved to the cheering crowd.
"I’m surprised at you, Dolph, this is the genuine new me you are speaking to."
"Then why are you looking so greedily pleased with yourself, eh, Geck?"
"Because you dunce, that’s the old me."
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