Epic Farm Boy Page 19

“Oh who cares?” Lucas said. “Let’s just get the stupid sword, so I can kill the stupid bad guy, and get the stupid potion!”

  “Hey! It took me half of my life to make that potion!” Mulligan said. “Don’t call it stupid.”

  “Sorry,” Lucas spat as he turned around and stomped off.

  “Was he being sarcastic?” Mulligan asked Arethel. She shrugged. “Simplin, was he being sarcastic?”

  Simplin followed Arethel’s lead and shrugged as well.

  “I’m choosing to believe that you meant that apology sincerely, Lucas!” Mulligan said. “You wouldn’t want to tussle with me, farm boy!”

  Lucas turned around and made a show of trembling in mock terror. “Oh no, Mulligan is gonna ‘tussle’ with me—I’m soooo scared! What are you gonna do? Bite my kneecap, you midget!”

  Mulligan gasped and put a hand to his mouth.

  “That’s right, shut up!” Lucas said. “You probably wouldn’t even make it half way to me before tripping on your shoe lace anyway, you spaz!”

  Mulligan started to cry and turned to bury his head in Arethel’s shoulder.

  “There, there,” Arethel said as she comforted the dwarf.

  “He can’t call me a midget, that isn’t nice!” Mulligan sobbed. “Make him take it back!”

  “I’ll talk with him,” Simplin the Wise said.

  The wizard caught up with Lucas and elbowed him in the side. “Mind telling me what all that was about?”

  Lucas shrugged. “I dunno, just felt like we needed to add tension into the group, you know, ratchet up the stakes and all that. I’m really getting into this story development stuff. Conflict creates a more dynamic story, right?”

  “Ah, so you did have a reason, and here I thought you were just being an arrogant jerk for kicks and giggles,” Simplin said. “Glad to hear you thought it all out.”

  “Yep,” Lucas said. “Now, when I have the sword in hand, I can apologize to him, tell him how sorry I am for my immature behavior. Then he’ll admire my emotional growth, and I will come out looking like a hero. Everybody wins!”

  “Lucas, I don’t think it works that way,” Simplin said.

  “Why not?”

  “I think you’re just going to leave the impression that you’re a jerk. I mean, he’s half your size, but that isn’t his fault. And you called him a really insulting name. That was extremely insensitive. Besides, there wasn’t anything for you to start arguing about. It just doesn’t work as a plot device. You want tension, but you’ve only succeeded in looking like an ape without a heart.”

  Lucas frowned. “Nah, I’ll apologize and everything will be magically better. Watch, you’ll see. It will draw the whole team closer together; make us more efficient. We’ll need that comradery going into the final battle. Don’t worry, I timed the argument right, it’ll work.”

  Simplin let the matter drop and followed Lucas into the tunnel that looked like a large mouth. Water was dripping down the interior of the cave, pooling at the bottom. Their steps splashed through the shallow, but very wide puddle. Low hanging moss had to be pushed out of the way as they moved deeper into the cave. There was no light in the tunnel, so Simplin snapped his fingers and made a ball of light hover nearby.

  “See, it’s always good to have a wizard around,” Simplin said.

  “Watch your step,” Lucas said, pointing down to the floor.

  Simplin saw that the tunnel descended at a steep angle at the back of the entry chamber. “Kind of makes you think of a throat, doesn’t it?” Simplin said.

  “Just be careful,” Lucas said. “The water from the pool is running down the middle of the—”

  “WHOA!” Simplin called out as his feet went out from under him. He started sliding down the slope, catching Lucas by the leg and bringing him along for the ride as well.

  “OOOOH NOOOO!” Simplin shouted as they slid faster and faster. The tunnel wound to the left, then to the right, then it looped around and dropped at dizzying speed.

  “I’m gonna be sick!” Simplin said.

  Lucas was behind him, shouting and hollering the whole way. “WOO-HOO!” The two bumped into each other, which sent them each up opposite sides of the tunnel, and then they slid back down to crash into each other again.

  “This is great!” Lucas said. “We have to do this again!”

  Simplin grabbed at his stomach, doing everything he could to keep his breakfast where it should be. They slid for a long time, curving and swerving until finally the floor of the tunnel dropped out from underneath them and they free-feel over a waterfall about twelve feet high.

  “Holy mackerel!” Simplin exclaimed as they crashed into a deep pool below.

  Simplin kicked his legs and swung his arms wildly, trying to right himself. By the time he made it up out of the water, he noticed that Lucas was already standing on dry land. Simplin snarled to himself and clumsily dog-paddled his way to the edge of the pool. “That was absolutely horrid!” he muttered as he got out.

  Lucas shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad,” he said as he toweled himself off.

  “Where’d you get the towel?” Simplin asked.

  Lucas pointed back to the side of the pool. Simplin turned and saw a young man with very tanned skin sitting in a tall, white chair, wearing red shorts and a pair of sunglasses. “He said it was his last one for the day. Here, you can use it if you want,” Lucas offered.

  Simplin held the damp towel and then discarded it onto the ground. “No thanks, and why is that guy wearing sunglasses? We’re in a cave that has no source of natural light.”

  “Come on, I see the way we have to go,” Lucas said.

  “How do you know?” Simplin asked. “I count seven tunnels.”

  Lucas pointed to the top of the tunnel on the left. “The sign, it says this way to see the sword. I figure that has to be it, right?”

  Simplin saw a large, rectangular sign hanging above the tunnel’s entrance and sighed with a shake of his head. “Yeah, I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any.”

  They walked for another fifteen minutes before they came to a large, underground chamber. The darkness was so thick, that even the conjured ball of magical light had trouble penetrating it. But, after a bit of work, Simplin was able to strengthen his light, and sent it up toward the ceiling to give light to the whole room.

  There, in the middle of the chamber, was a stone. In the stone, was a great sword, made of the finest steel. It twinkled as the light hit the blade, and a chorus of choir boys began singing off to the side as Lucas approached it.

  He stretched forth his hand and touched the pommel reverently. The choir boys sang louder.

  Lucas was about to pull it, and then he stopped, and turned to Simplin. “Hang on, I think we have the wrong place,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Simplin asked as he rushed to Lucas’ side. “Can’t you pull it?”

  “It isn’t that,” Lucas said. “It’s just that this isn’t stone. It’s petrified wood. Look.” Lucas pointed to the base of the stone, and that’s when Simplin noticed what Lucas was talking about. The top of the stone was entirely flat, smooth even, like a tree stump. The base grew out wider, with roots still visibly sticking into the ground. “I can’t use this sword,” Lucas said. “The legend clearly stated that I had to pull a sword from stone to slay Skidmark the Brown.”

  “AAAH!” one of the choir boys screamed and held up his hand, his mouth hanging open in terror. The other choir boys jumped off their platform and ran for the doorway screaming “Spider! Spider!” The bitten choir boy went rigid, and fell over, crashing to the ground, dead.

  “I thought you said we shouldn’t say that name anymore,” Simplin commented.

  “Right,” Lucas said. “Um… should we tell someone?”

  “No,” Simplin said. “Just keep working with the sword, I mean, what loving parent would let their son perform in a choir way down in the ground without adult supervision anyway, right?”

  “Right,” Lucas said wit
h a nod. “So, like I was saying, this isn’t a sword in a stone. It’s a sword in a stump. That is clearly not the same thing.”

  “Think Simplin, think!” the wizard said. “The trouble is, we only have two days left before the end of the world.”

  “What? I didn’t know that,” Lucas shrieked. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s in the legend. Everyone knows that Ski—I mean, he who must not be named, is going to perform the spell by reading from the Really Evil Book of Super Bad Spells on the last full moon of the summer, which is in two days.”

  “When were you going to tell me that?” Lucas asked.

  “I just did,” Simplin said indignantly. “Besides, I thought you would have asked before now. It just kind of slipped my mind with all the other things that have been happening lately, I guess.”

  “It slipped your mind! Are you insane?”

  “No, I’m quite healthy, I assure you,” Simplin replied. “Now listen, the way I see it, petrified wood is actually a fossil. It doesn’t have any organic matter left in it. In fact, all the organic remains have been replaced by minerals over years and years of mineralization that have slowly turned what was once wood into stone in the shape of a stump. Petrification causes the original organic material to be replaced with silica, calcite, pyrite, or another inorganic material such as opal, which means that this is very much a sword in a stone, even though it looks like a stump.”

  “I didn’t understand a single word of that,” Lucas said.

  “Look, it’s stone. Go ahead and knock on it with your knuckles. You’ll feel it.”

  Lucas shrugged and grasped the sword. “I guess either way, with only two days left, we don’t have time to look for the other one.”

  “That’s right. Now pull it and let’s figure out how to get out of here.”

  Lucas pulled the sword and a great, golden light shined down from the ceiling and bright particles of gold dust fell around Lucas.

  “I think you have found your destiny!” Simplin shouted with glee.

  “Epic!” Lucas replied.

  The two then went back out the way they had come, and were about to climb back up to the chute they had slid in from, but the lifeguard blew his whistle, stopped them, and then pointed to a large red sign over a tunnel that was behind him.

  “Oh, I guess that sign says ‘exit’ on it,” Lucas said nonchalantly.

  “I swear that tunnel wasn’t here before,” Simplin noted.

  “Take it as a sign that your author friend likes us, and is helping us along on our journey.”

  “But he doesn’t like me,” Simplin muttered to himself.

  “Ha!” Lucas slapped his side. “Take it as a sign, get it?” he chuckled. “We’re looking at a physical sign, and I say take it as a sign, you know, like a metaphorical sign. Get it?”

  “Yeah,” Simplin said. “You know, most jokes lose their flavor if you have to explain them, puns doubly so.”

  “Oh,” Lucas said with a dismissive wave. “You’re just upset ‘cause you didn’t think of it.”

  “No, I’m more concerned with why Jack is helping us all of a sudden. I would have expected him to make us try to climb out of here… not give us some sort of…”

  The two reached the tunnel and Lucas pressed a round, silver button.

  Two doors slid open and inside stood a man dressed in a red suit and a strange looking cap. “Going up?” the man asked.

  “Yep!” Lucas said as he jumped into the box.

  “Coming sir?” the man asked Simplin.

  Simplin stepped into the contraption and watched warily as the doors closed. The man in the funny suit and cap then pulled a lever on the wall and suddenly they were racing upward.

  “Hold on, this one moves rather quickly!” the man said.

  When the doors opened, Lucas was ready to go down the slide again just so he could ride the super-fast elevator. Simplin, on the other hand, wobbled out of the box and turned to vomit off to the side. When he had finished, he conjured up a breath mint and popped it into his mouth before they joined up with their friends.

  “How did it go?” Arethel asked.

  Lucas held out the sword. “I got it, I have found my destiny!”

  Arethel clapped, but Mulligan was still crying, and turned away from Lucas.

  “Oh, hey, uh, Mulligan, I’m sorry about all that stuff I said. I was just under a lot of pressure, you know, saving the world and all that.”

  Mulligan jumped up and turned around with a huge smile on his face. “Oh, did you hear that!? He apologized! Everything is ALL better now. Wow, he has grown so much since the last time we saw each other. I mean, the maturity and emotional growth he has achieved since our parting is just so astounding!”

  “It’s been thirty minutes,” Simplin said.

  “Well, it feels like a lifetime,” Mulligan said. “Either way, he apologized, and that makes everything all better, no matter what. Nothing else needed, ever!”

  “Well that’s… interesting,” Simplin commented. He glanced up to Arethel and she happily nodded her agreement.

  “He has changed; even I can see it. Maybe it’s the sword, but he has grown into a fine man.”

  “No,” Lucas said. “I have grown into… wait for it…” he thrusted his sword up into the air and his shirt ripped off of his body as a bolt of lightning struck the blade. “Epic Farm Boy!”

  Simplin slapped a hand to his face. “Let’s just get moving.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The group somehow managed to walk the last two hundred miles in only a day and a half, thereby arriving at the edge of the evil villain’s domain with just enough time to fight their way in and save the day.

  But first, they had to cross a toll bridge.

  The bridge spanned a deep chasm, which went all the way down into the center of the world, where rivers of lava flowed freely. Trying to cross the gorge by any other means would result in certain death.

  “But I could conjure my cloud and fly across,” Simplin suggested as he looked up at the sky toward Jack.

  Jack sighed, and began typing furiously.

  Not only did the chasm reach all the way down to the molten lava layer of the world, but it was so hot that a wall of invisible fire shot up from the canyon, incinerating anything foolish enough to try and bypass the bridge –and before any character could argue, a flock of geese made the error of trying to fly across, and were all turned to ash in an instant, not even managing to reach a third of the way across.

  “Well played, Jack, well played,” Simplin said.

  The only way across was the bridge, but there was a problem. It didn’t take crowns; the turnstile only utilized tokens that were manufactured at the Dark Tower by Skidmark the Brown.

  All of the characters gasped simultaneously, cowering in fear. Just then, the door to the booth next to the bridge opened up and a troll came stumbling out, clutching at his heart.

  “Which one of you said it?” the troll asked. “Which one of you said the name?”

  Simplin, Lucas, Mulligan, and Arethel all pointed up at the sky.

  “Curse you, author, do you have no heart for anyone on this world?” the troll asked. Then he fell to the ground, dead.

  “Well, at least it wasn’t one of us,” Simplin said with a chuckle. “Now, let’s go and see if the troll has any tokens we can take. He won’t be needing them.” The group started for the troll, but just then, the body sat up and looked at them.

  “STOP!” it shouted.

  “What in the blue blazes is happening?” Lucas asked.

  “Nobody ever survives that curse,” Arethel commented.

  The troll then stood up, and leapt backward into the chasm, screaming and laughing with glee as he held out his golden token, pausing in mid-air to turn and look at Simplin. “MY Precious token!”

  Then the troll disappeared, with all of his tokens, leaving the heroes without any way to legally pay for crossing the bridge.

  “Oh, confound it all,�
�� Simplin shouted. “I see what you’re trying to do, Jack. But this is weak sauce, man. I mean, if you want to create a moral dilemma for the heroes, it has to be something truly challenging. Asking us to either pay for a turnstile, or jump across and skip paying a token is small potatoes, my friend. I mean, the bad guy is the one who owns the bridge, and the same guy who makes the tokens. So, we’re only stealing a tiny little bit from a maniac who wants to burn the entire world. There is no dilemma.”

  “No,” Jack said. “There is a dilemma.”

  “Not for me,” Simplin said as he walked toward the turnstile.

  “Simplin, aren’t you forgetting something?” Jack asked in a thunderous voice as red and black clouds rolled into the sky.

  “Um, nope,” Simplin said as he continued on his way toward the turnstile.

  “What about the day after my fifteenth birthday, remember that?” Jack asked.

  The other heroes leapt over the turnstile, eager to be on their way, but Simplin stopped, his hands just touching the turnstile as the wizard shook his head. “Surely, you wouldn’t hold me to that, would you?” Simplin asked.

  “What’s he talking about?” Lucas asked.

  “The day after his birthday, he watched a film about a guy who finds a magic lamp, I forget the name, but it had a flying carpet and a genie that were hilarious—anyway, one of the guards in that show said the penalty for stealing was cutting off the thief’s hand.”

  “And?” Jack pressed with a smug tone of voice.

  “And then Jack wrote a story about me, in Arabia, and he made me a thief. I was caught, but then guards let me go so long as I promised to do magic for them. He called it the Origin of the Genie, it was a dumb story, really,”

  “AND?” Jack thundered.

  “And I also had to promise that no matter where I went, or what I did, if I ever stole anything ever again, even a crumb of bread, I would lose my hands…both of them.”

  “So, Simplin, do you see the dilemma now?” Jack asked.

  “You guys should go on without me,” Simplin said. “I’ll find another way.”

  “WHAT?” Lucas shouted. “We need your magic.”