Thread: The Search for Grinningbook - A Novel

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Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

<center>The Search for Grinningbook
Episode One:
The Caws and Effects</center>


The Wizard sat holding his head in his hands, wondering what, exactly had happened.
His bright blue wizard’s robe was hanging off him in tatters, and his tall, cone-shaped hat was gone, along with the assortment of bunnies it always contained. He was sitting on a flat stone that used to part of the front wall of the Caws and Effects Magic Shop that had become the home of he, Grinningbook and Thirteen, their cat.
But now, it was a pile of stone rubble. All the stock and store of magical supplies were destroyed. All the magical pathways had caved in or disappeared. The roof had tumbled into the second floor, which had collapsed onto the main floor which in turn fell into the basement. What was left was crumbled mason airy, broken bits of wood and shattered glass. A broken sign reading “Caws and Eff..” poked out from the ruins.
The Wizard didn’t speak. He couldn’t think. He could only hold his aching head. The only word that seemed to have any meaning at all to him was “gone.”
Slowly, he began to accept the inevitable truth.
It was gone. Everything. All of it.
Slowly he spread a shaking hand in front of him as if trying to mystically feel the air. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the effort. His lips formed a word and he whispered it out loud.
“Grinningbook.”
He waited, his hand shaking worse the longer he held it out. He screwed up his face as if the muscular tension could somehow increase the will power behind it.
“Grinningbook,” he said outloud.
Finally, his face relaxed and he let his hand drop.
He opened his eyes as his numb mind slowly accepted the truth. Grinningbook was gone along with everything else. But somehow, it was worse than that, far less simple.
He began to rock back and forth on the stone.
It wasn’t as if she was merely missing or lost. It wasn’t as if she had run off, or had been captured, or was lying somewhere hurt. She was no longer there at all, not a trace of her. It was as if she had been erased from existence altogether. She wasn’t merely missing from the present. She wasn’t just part of the rubble around him. She wasn’t even in the past anymore. It was as if she had never existed at all. Ever.
And yet, he knew that she had. He had a clear and distinct memory of her. He remembered meeting her in the summer, and offering advice to her about decorating. He had told her to try a Botany Bay theme, dead prisoners and all that. He remembered her response had been one of excitement – she liked it. He remembered her being all over the threads after that, commenting on every topic with similar enthusiasm, touching everyone, becoming the one and only Australian representative of the odd Halloween community gathering. He remembered when Raven’s Point was first created and the familiar places like the Caws and Effects, Vlad’s Tavern, the Frankenstein castle, the Candy Cauldron and Hatchet Jake’s ramshackle church were established, she had entered the town as it’s psychiatrist, and she became known by everyone as Dr. Headcase.
What was it she had always said, he thought, desperately searching his memory; “tell me your problems, I can help…”
She had been on a riot at Vlad’s Tavern the time Nosta disappeared, playing the jukebox and depleting the bar stock along with Wicked and Eerie Myst. She had gone on shopping trips and ridden mysterious trains with the mad fat countess who called herself the Black Widow. She had giggled with delight when he created the now infamous Victoria’s Secret Kangaroo suit for her, and had even asked him one night at Vlad’s, if he cared to feel the pouch…which had been placed in “the most interesting place.” She had been one of his supporters in his now legendary duel with Victor Von Frankenfraud at the duckpond on the outskirts of town. And she had joined him at Vlad’s for the town’s Christmas party…
He let his mind dwell there. He had joined her as she tacked mistletoe over the door…huddled in a corner table with her as the rabbits from his hat ran all over the place…danced with her in mid-air as the music played, then helped her unload the mysterious shipment of trees that somehow appeared in the parking lot. It was on the next day, after telling Nosta he had fallen in love with her, that she had enwrapped him in a sphere of pure blue energy and showed him the essence of a rainbow, and traded a portion of her soul with him.
Yet none of those events existed any longer, despite his clear and distinct memories of them. It wasn’t like as with Susiecat, Nosta, Ninergirl, Johnny Skeleton, Wicked, Eerie Myst or any of the others who created this realm and then slipped away from it for one reason or another. Their marks in the past – the chronicals of what transpired – were still there. But there was no longer any trace of Grinningbook, not even her name.
It was now as if the events he remembered so fondly and so well, had never happened at all.
He thought of the day she had moved into the Caws and Effects and a stab of hurt ran through his body. He closed his eyes and concentrated. His whole body slumped. That was gone too.
Slowly, the Wizard began to look around. He had no idea why the magic shop was in ruin. He had no memory of the attack. But the rubble on which he was sitting told him that something had happened. He searched his mind for a suitable enemy who might be able to do something like this. Certainly it couldn’t be the ill-conceived and feeble-minded shadow of Victor Frankenstein. He was nothing these days but a poorly constructed puppet of the Black Widow, and she was merely annoying, certainly not clever enough to do something like this.
Nor could it have been any of the ghouls, vampires, gangsters or even Satan himself, all of whom the Wizard had faced at one time or the other during his residence in Raven’s Point.
But it had to be someone who thoroughly hated him. It wasn’t enough to destroy all he had physically created. Whoever had done this had eliminated, from existence, the thing he loved most in the universe, Grinningbook. Worse yet, whoever – or whatever – had done it had left him alive to suffer over it.
“Who could have done this?” he whispered to himself. “Who could have been so cruel?”
He couldn’t think of anyone that hated him that badly. He flexed his muscles, realizing that – despite the condition of the shop – he wasn’t hurt at all, which was impossible unless the sudden attack hadn’t been intended to hurt him physically. He suddenly heard a low, sorrowful, moaning sort of sound and his head perked. Something in the back of his mind recognized it as the distant yowling of a cat. But it wasn’t just any cat, the Wizard thought, standing and staring in the direction he thought the sound was coming from.
It was Thirteen, the small curious kitten Grinningbook had given him for Christmas. At least she wasn’t gone, although from the sound of her cries, she might be hurt. It slowly came back to him that the cat hadn’t been in the shop with him. Thirteen had gone out with Grinningbook to gather some of the mystical herbs that grew near the pumpkin patch near the edge of town. They had taken Thirteen’s broomstick with them, so that she could continue the kitten’s flying lessons.
Thirteen wasn’t just any cat. She was an odd, mystical construct of ordinary feline and the mysterious blue energy Grinningbook manifested when she first proclaimed her love for the Wizard, which meant her connection was every bit as strong as Grinningbook’s was to the Wizard himself. He suddenly realized that if there were answers to be had, they would be found in the cat.
He reached into the air for his wand, which manifested slowly in his hand as if the incredible energy it contained had been partially drained away. He turned and gave a backwards look at what was once the most wonderful and mysterious place in all off Raven’s Point. He felt a sudden pang, as if somehow he knew he would never see the Caws and Effects again.
But he dismissed the thought as he pointed the wand and a stream of green energy opened a portal in mid-air. He stepped through it without looking back again.
The search had begun


Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

<center>The Search for Grinningbook
Episode Two:
The Pumpkin Patch</center>


The pumpkin patch was at the far end of Raven’s Point separating the town proper from the dark forest. Just beyond the weathered, three-post fences containing it, the pumpkins growing there were normal size. But they grew larger the further inside the patch you went. In the center, the pumpkins were ancient, ranging in size from the size of Volkswagens and large boulders to some as big as two story houses.
Thirteen lay on her side, dazed, beside one of them. She was the small black kitten Grinningbook had given to the Wizard on Christmas night when they met at Vlad’s. And even though there was no longer any evidence in either the past or the present that that event never happened, Thirteen thought about it as she yowled for help.
Beside her was the shattered remains of the broomstick Thirteen had once found in the Raven’s Point Cemetery and that Grinningbook had taught her to fly. Even though that event had never happened either, Thirteen remembered it clearly. She thought she had learned to fly very well too, well enough not have crashed into the side of a pumpkin the size of the magic shop where she, the Wizard and his lady Grinningbook lived, anyway.
She searched her mind for what had happened. She had been soaring over the town, then over the pumpkin patch when…
When…
What?
She couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. All she did remember was suddenly realizing there was no longer a broomstick supporting her…only a sudden collection of straws and splinters and that she was falling headlong into the ancient center of the patch. But why the broomstick had come apart that way was a total mystery. It was there one moment, and gone the next. It was as simple as that. She wondered if she’d hit something, a bird, or a bat, or maybe even a banshee. Thirteen had never seen a banshee, but the Wizard told her that one used to live in the town. She figured that she had to have hit something. Broomsticks didn’t just come apart by themselves, after all.
At least she didn’t think they did. But when it came down to it, she wasn’t really certain. She decided to ask Grinningbook when she got home.
It was then that she realized that Grinningbook wasn’t there…had never been there…didn’t in fact exist at all and never had. She started to cry, wondering how this could be, but knowing somehow that it was true. She remembered the face, the smile, the blue-green eyes, the long, flowing light-brown hair. She remembered the gentle hands that had softly stroked her fur and patted her head. But they no longer existed either.
Before she had much more of a chance to grow even more confused, there was a brightening on the side of a boulder size pumpkin a short distance from her. She looked up to see a blue white light explode from it and grow into a wide, round portal. The Wizard, his wand in his hand, stepped through the magical portal before it abruptly collapsed behind him.
She meowed eagerly, climbing onto her shaky paws. He was in a worse state than she was, Thirteen thought. His face bore the marks of several, brownish, drying scratches, his blue robe was torn and hanging off him in places, and even the wand he was holding looked nicked and battered.
But he smiled when he saw her standing there, and he limped over to her.
Thirteen was so happy to see him that she bounded over to him even though the effort hurt…a lot. He picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and gently stroked her head.
“Well,” he said. “It’s good to see that you are at least intact. That’s more than I can say about the magic shop and our dear Grinningbook.”
Thirteen perked up at the sound of her name. “Meeeeow?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes,” the Wizard said, nodding. “Of course I remember her. She is my lady, my mate. She gave me part of her soul once and told me to be the custodian of her heart. Those things still dwell within me, all though she apparently has never existed.”
“Yeow?”
“I don’t know. Either we’re both completely mad, or something else is going on.”
Thirteen looked up curiously. The Wizard smiled down at her.
“That,” he said as if answering an unspoken question, “Is what we have to discover. I have enemies powerful enough to have caused the destruction. I even know of some who could have altered more than a few memories. But I know of nothing that can eliminate a being from time and space itself.”
Thirteen had no idea, of course, what David was talking about, although she knew it must be important. She asked a question which he seemed to consider a long time before answering.
“We can remember her because she is a part of us both,” he finally said. “Even though the evidence contradicts the point, since part of her still exists in us, the rest of her had to have existed as well. Finding her is going to be more difficult because of that, since no one but us will have any memory of her at all.”
He set the cat down and frowned. “I guess we’re on our own, kitten,” he said.
Thirteen meowed, getting his attention. She gestured toward the shattered remains of her broomstick that were scattered around the base of the pumpkin. The Wizard walked over to and kneeled down. “You’re right,” he said, turning to the cat. “This is important.”
He slowly drew a circle around the remains with his wand and waited. Although Thirteen couldn’t see anything happening at all, the Wizard seemed startled.
“This is impossible,” he said, standing again. “But I can’t be wrong about it.”
He turned to Thirteen, his face suddenly drained of its color. “You were apparently hit by blue energy,” he said.
“Meow?”
David frowned, seeing that she didn’t understand. “Blue energy is what Grinningbook used to create her spheres,” he said. “It can’t be made by spells or charms. It’s a very personal thing with a very specific signature. And this one is hers.”
He thought for a long time, pacing with a limp as he did. “That means,” he finally said. “That she must have done this herself.”
“Meow?”
The Wizard shrugged. “I don’t know why. But if it’s true, that’s why neither of us was harmed by the energy while everything else around us was. The blue energy is part of her, and she is part of us. So we couldn’t be harmed by it. But what I don’t understand is why we are still here. If she is responsible somehow, then we should have been drawn away with her, not left behind with a memory someone desperately wanted to eliminate.”
David looked down at the wand, frowning in frustration. “We aren’t likely going to find any answers here or at what’s left of the magic shop either,” he said. “But I know of a place where we might.”
“Rowwww?” Thirteen asked.
“It’s a place called the Realm of the Ancients,” The Wizard said grimly. “It exists on a different plane of reality. It’s the place I learned the way of the wand. It’s the place where my old mentor, Chu Fang, still dwells. If anyone can make sense of all this, Chu Fang can.”
Thirteen asked how they were going to get there, since her broom had been destroyed.
“It isn’t a place we can fly to, or walk to either for that matter,” the Wizard said. “The Realm of the Ancients can only be reached by magic, and then only by those it accepts inside.”
“Meow?”
“Of course they’ll let you in,” he said smiling, picking her back up again.
He trained his wand on the side of the massive pumpkin and a new portal sprang into existence. Thirteen clung to the Wizards tattered robe as he carried her inside it.




Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Episode Three:
The Realm of the Ancients


The very long and seemingly endless tunnel came to an abrupt end with a flash of green light, and the Wizard found himself standing in a large room with white-stucco walls and a wood planned floor. The ceiling was lost in darkness since the dim, flickering light from the candles on stands failed to reach it. Oriental tapestries hung from the ceiling to the floor and a large jade dragon occupied one corner.

An old, bald Chinese man sat cross-legged, floating a few inches off the floor before a low, highly polished mahogany table. He was dressed in a scarlet silken robe, and he was puffing on a long pipe. A teapot and two cups were resting on the table before him. Steam drifted lazily from both.

The Wizard approached him slowly with Thirteen perched cautiously on his shoulder. He bowed once the old man turned toward him.

Chu Fang removed the pipe from his mouth and nodded. “You have been long in coming,” he said. “I expected you sooner.”

“In a timeless place, one can hardly be considered late,” David said, smiling a little. “In fact I could actually leave before I arrived and still be on time.”

The old man didn’t reply. He simply nodded toward the empty space on the other side of the table. The Wizard walked over and sat cross-legged on the floor facing the old man. He gingerly set Thirteen on the floor and then waved his hand in a flourished gesture. He slowly rose off the floor until he was facing his former mentor.

“I have prepared tea,” Chu Fang said. “As I recall, you preferred it with lemon and a hint of honey.”

The Wizard smiled. “You’re memory is as sound as ever, master,” he said.

Chu Fang frowned at him, and he shook his head. “When you were my pupil, it was appropriate for you to address me so,” he said. “But that was long ago. In many ways, you are my master now.”

David smiled reaching for the cup. “Kind words,” he said.

“No,” Chu Fang contradicted. “Words that have been earned, my brother.”

“Nonetheless, I haven’t just come for the tea.”

“I hadn’t assumed that you did. There is a matter puzzling you. I could sense it long before you appeared.”

“Anticipation was always one of your strong points.”

The Wizard told him how he awakened on the pile of rubble that was once the Caws and Effects Magic shop. He told him how he had then found the cat in the pumpkin patch just outside of Raven’s Point, and how something had attacked her in the air, demolishing the broomstick she had been riding. Then he told the old man, in as much detail as he could, what had happened to Grinningbook, how she had not simply been taken from him, but had been removed from time itself.

The old man listened patiently, occasionally puffing on his pipe. When the Wizard finished the tale, he reached into a pocket and produced some of the splinters and straws from Thirteen’s shattered broomstick. He placed them on the table before Chu Fang. The old man studied them for a moment and then, concentrating hard, waved his hand over the top of them. Slowly, a dome-shaped blister of blue energy formed thinly over the remains.

The Wizard sighed. “It’s as I feared,” he said.

Chu Fang shook his aged head. “Do not be hasty,” he said.

He concentrated harder.

Slowly, the blue energy shell began to shift color, turning violet, then purple. Finally, it glowed scarlet red.

The Wizard stared at it as if he didn’t understand. “How can that be?” he asked, looking into the old man’s eyes. “Something like that shouldn’t be possible.”

“No, it should not,” Chu Fang said. “But the evidence of our eyes is not a deception. Obviously, this person is still there but not there too.”

“Possession?”

“Nothing quite so simple, I fear.”

“Then what?”

Chu Fang reached into the air, and a crystal lens appeared in his hand. He trained it on the glowing red energy bubble and peered through it.

“It is the emergence or something primeval,” he said after a long time.

“What the heck does that mean?” David said, furrowing his brow.

“The individual who created the original blue energy has been absorbed and transformed into something else.”

“What?”

“Look at the color of the bubble.”

“Red. So what?”

Chu Fang tossed the crystal into the air and it disappeared. He uncrossed his legs and lowered them to the floor. He pointed a long, thin finger at the wall, which seemed to melt away into an arched entrance leading into a library.

“We must be certain, come with me,” he said, beckoning the Wizard forward by hooking a finger. David turned to Thirteen, who had curled up on the floor below him.

“Stay here and wait,” he said. “Don’t move or chase anything. This isn’t home. Do you understand?”

Thirteen opened a sleepy eye, yawned, and then nodded her head.

David followed his old mentor into the library that, like the other room, was dimly lit with flickering candles. Chu Fang gestured in the air, and an ancient, red-leather bound book floated slowly down from a high shelf into his waiting hands. He leafed through the pages until he found was he had been seeking.

If it were possible, his face became even paler. He shook his head. “It is Rage,” he said in a low voice.

“Rage?” the Wizard said, peering into the book. “As in extreme anger? Are you saying that Grinningbook is pissed off?”

A thin smile snaked across the Oriental’s face. “You know very well what I mean.”

“No. I don’t.”

“It is the elemental form of rage that has overwhelmed her. It is what she has become.”

The Wizard shook his head. “No,” he said. “You must be mistaken.”

“Acceptance of the unacceptable does not come easily, my son. But the truth always speaks itself.”

The Wizards mind began to reel. He knew very well what his former master was telling him. Rage wasn’t just anger. It was the pure form of anger, the form from which all other types modeled themselves. But they were pale representations of the original, knock-offs only. Rage was the purity of a state of being, as undesirable as that state of being might be. It was flawless, seamless, unrelenting and irreversible.

He slowly looked up from the book into the ancient face of his former mentor. “How could this have happened?” he asked. “Kris wasn’t angry. She wasn’t harboring some grudge. She liked everyone. And we were happy together, happier than either us had ever been.”

“I have not the answers you seek,” the old man said. “But there must have been something hidden away that you could not have seen or imagined. Otherwise, Rage would never have been able to overtake and them overwhelm her.”

The Wizard literally stumbled out of the library, holding his face in both hands, trying desperately to understand how such a dreadful calamity could have befallen his gentle lady. He remembered the day she moved into the Caws and Effects, and how nervous he had been. He remembered what it was like to hold her, to kiss her to feel the love she returned to him without hesitation. But mostly he remembered the way she chose to tell him that his love was returned. It was the night she gave him half of her soul. It was the first night she surrounded them both inside the blue sphere.

He thought about the sphere. He thought about the bubble Chu Fang had caused to raise from the splinters of Thirteen’s broomstick. There was something about it he seemed to stumble over without quite understanding why.

Suddenly, it struck him like an epiphany. “It’s the blue energy,” he said, turning abruptly to Chu Fang, who raised a curious eyebrow in response. “Didn’t you tell me once that use of it was only possible by the most serious of practitioners?”

“Or by those born with an innate ability,” Chu Fang said. “Yes, it is as I have said. In the case of the Phnom, the ability surfaces at a very young age.”

“But never at a later age?”

“Never. If it does not surface early, it is something requiring the most serious of dedication to bring forth.”

David rubbed his chin. “Kris wasn’t magical,” he said. “She was a psychologist. She had a very practical, empirical mind. In fact, she never displayed any magical abilities at all until that night when she encased us in her blue sphere.”

“That seems improbable at best,” Chu Fang said, his face placid.

“It does, doesn’t it? But what if the ability was innate, but there was also something present restricting it from appearing? What if the two were holding each other in check, keeping either from appearing?”

“You mean the rage?”

“Yes. What if it was there all along, but the blue energy inside her was holding it, restricting it from appearing or even affecting her?”

Chu Fang understood, nodding his head. “The use of the energy to create the sphere would have interrupted the balance,” he said. “Especially since it was used to fulfill a particular emotion that, as it seems, was in direct opposition to what Rage is.”

The Wizard nodded. “It makes sense,” he said. “But why didn’t I notice a gradual change in her? She remained as loving as every until I woke on the rubble of our home.”

“It doubtlessly waited until it had sufficient strength, careful not to betray it’s presence. It must have overwhelmed her all at once.”

“And yet,” the Wizard said. “It didn’t harm either me or the cat. The initial remnants of the energy that destroyed Thirteen’s broom were blue. That means something held it back. It means that part of Kris is still present within it. It means there is still something I can reach.”

Chu Fang gripped his shoulder. “Or it could simply mean that the transformation was not fully complete,” he said earnestly. “It could also mean that it could not destroy a part of itself with damaging the whole, but it did not have sufficient power yet for a second or third transformation. You are stepping into an extremely gray area if you are thinking of attempting what I fear you are, wizard.”

David shook the hand away. “If there’s any chance at all, I have to try,” he said, his eyes suddenly blazing. “I’ve been looking for her all my life without even realizing I was doing it. Now that I’ve found her, I can’t let her go like this.”

Concern replaced Chu Fang’s calm demeanor. “I fear that your emotions may be clouding your reason,” he said. “You don’t seem to realize what you are facing. This is something beyond mere magic. It is an elemental force as old as nature itself. You may as well try to bottle up a volcano with a cork.”

“I am not exactly without power,” David said coolly.

Chu Fang was quiet for a long time, studying the Wizard in a dreamy sort of way. David recognized the trance as one of prognostication. “If you are to allow arrogance to lead you down this path, then let me tell you what will happen,” Chu Fang said softly. “It will know you are seeking it. It will spread its rage and set traps for you. It will see you coming around every corner and slip away at every turn. Then, when it finally tires of toying with you, it will destroy you.”

The Wizard smiled wryly. “Not if I get the boot in first,” he said. “Maybe I can’t fight it with magic tricks. Maybe all my skill and power are useless. But there’s one thing I’ve learned since I first met Grinningbook. Love finds a way. And so will I.”

He turned to leave but stopped abruptly as a sudden concern cross his mind.

“There is one favor I’d like to ask of you,” he said, turning back to his former master.

Chu Fang looked back at him, his face placid again.

“I would like you to watch my kitten for me,” David said. “She is overly curious and she can be a royal pain. But I would not like to take her into harm’s way.”

The old man shook his head solemnly. “The cat must accompany you,” he said. “She is endowed with the soul of the woman you seek the same as you are. Your chances of succeeding are practically nil. With the cat along side you, they are at least doubled.”

David sighed, knowing that Chu Fang was right. He nodded and turned to the stare at the floor where he’d told Thirteen to wait. He found himself looking at a blank floor. Despite his warnings, Thirteen was gone.



Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Episode Four:
The Dark Forest


Thirteen wished she had listened to David. She had been curled on the floor of the odd smelling room and was just about asleep when the very strange worm inched past her.

Usually things like worms weren’t of much interest to the kitten since they didn’t move very quickly or offer the kind of sport that butterflies or especially lizards did. But this worm was different. Once it inched past it stopped, turned around and opened its mouth, which got bigger and wider until it spread open like a wide funnel. When the opening got bigger than she was, Thirteen opened her eyes and began to get curious. It didn’t look like a worm’s mouth anymore. It looked like the hole the Wizard had made in the side of the pumpkin.

Her tail had begun to swish back and forth as she had thought about it. If it were a sort of doorway like the one in the tunnel, then it would have to lead to someplace else, the kitten had thought. And someplace else would certainly be more interesting than the boring blank floor on which she had been napping.

She trotted over to it and sniffed at it cautiously, ready to rear back should it turn back into a mouth suddenly. It didn’t. But the smells inside were exotic and wonderful…like the way Grinningbook smelled after a shower or the way the kitchen cooked when she was cooking something tasty. But best yet were the sounds. Thirteen could hear the skittering of tiny feet running far down the tunnel just inside the mouth door. She couldn’t see them, but she knew that the sound was very much like mice, and there was nothing more fun than chasing them.

So despite the warning David had given her, she had stepped inside. At first she was very cautious, looking over her shoulder constantly to make certain the door hadn’t closed behind her. She had only intended to go far enough inside to find the mice and chase them playfully before returning to the boring room where David had told her to wait. But the further she went, the more distant the sounds became, and she had soon found herself running at full speed to catch up with them.

When she was close enough to actually see the small figures dashing around in front of her and she was just about to pounce on the nearest, they abruptly disappeared, just as the ghost mice in the Caws and Effects had done. She had stood there, angry and confused for a moment before turning back. When she did, however, there was nothing but darkness behind her. If there had ever been a door, it was either very far away – further than she possibly could have run – or it was closed.

One way or the other, she suddenly found herself very lost and alone.

She thought of all the passageways that used to appear and disappear inside the Wizard’s wonderful magic shop, and how no matter how confusing they seemed, they always lead back to the parlor. She figured that this passage must work the same way. So she began walking. But no matter how long she continued, it didn’t go anywhere but straight ahead with no end in sight.

Tired and thirsty, she began to wish she had listened to the Wizard and stayed on the floor of the ancient man’s chamber no matter how boring it had been. At least it was better than this. The tunnel was twice the size she was, but it was smooth and lighted by a glow coming off the sides. Thirteen guessed that she was somehow inside the worm itself, although she didn’t remember it having been this big. Then again, magical things were never what they seemed, no matter how they appeared.

Thirteen was thinking about this when the floor of the tunnel suddenly gave way and she found herself falling through the air. She seemed to fall a long way, and she was just beginning to long for the comfort of her broomstick beneath her when she landed on something soft with a slight thump.

She realized quickly that she was lying on pine needles, and was surrounded by tall, dark, trees. Thirteen recognized the place. Or at least she thought she did. Just beyond the pumpkin patch on the outskirts of Raven’s Point was a very large and very thick forest. She had flown over it many times, and once when her courage was up, she had even landed in the center of it to see what lived there.

Of course, that had been during the day, and as the dark sky above the trees told her, it was somehow nighttime now. She looked down at the pine needles just in time to see a fat odd-looking worm bury itself beneath them.

Thirteen barely had time to wonder it if was the same worm she had seen on the floor of Chu Fang’s house when something looming above her reached down and roughly grabbed her by the nape of the neck. Before she could even flinch, she felt herself being lifted high into the air until she stopped before a hideous, leering face.

Its skin was red, and thick black hair fell in bangs over its forehead. It’s cheekbones for overextended and bulbous, it’s nose sharp and pointed. Its mouth was barely more than a slice across its face, and when it smiled at her, the mouth opened to expose sharp rows of yellow teeth punctuated with a set of long fangs.

“Well, well, well,” it said in a low, hissing voice. “What have we here?”

“It might be a bat,” a voice behind the creature holding Thirteen said. “Or a skittering rat. A spider? A snake? Or a grinning black cat?”

“It is a black cat,” the creature holding Thirteen said. “But it doesn’t seem to be grinning.”

“Let me have it!” the voice said. “Warm blood!”

Thirteen didn’t like the voice. But she disliked the face looming in front of her even more. She hissed into its beady yellow eyes and tried vainly to swat at it with her little paws.

“My, aren’t you a feisty little one?” the creature said, grinning wickedly.

“Let me have her,” the voice pleaded. “I like it when they fight. I like it when they scream.”

The creature turned, still holding Thirteen at arm’s length. As it did, the kitten could see the thing standing just behind him. It wasn’t a vampire as Thirteen was convinced the creature holding her was. This was something worse. It was little more than an emaciated, rotting, animated corpse with half the skin missing from used to be its face. The Wizard had called such wretched creatures ghouls…or zombies. Thirteen couldn’t remember which. But at the moment, she decided that it didn’t much matter.

“Woftam, Woftam,” the vampire said in a cooing voice. “You shouldn’t frighten our little guest. We didn’t send that wormhole into the realm of the ancients to lure her here just to eat her.”

“But she would make such a tasty snack wriggling like that,” Woftam said.

The vampire turned back to Thirteen. “An appetizer, perhaps,” he said. “But not just yet. There is someone who is just dying to meet you little kitten. That’s why she has gone to such great lengths to bring you here.”

Thirteen didn’t like the sound of that one bit. She didn’t like the vampire and she didn’t like the ghoul. She didn’t like the fact that she’d been foolish enough to enter the wormhole, and she hated the fact that she’d been caught so easily. She certainly didn’t want to meet whoever had sent these monsters to catch her.

She hissed again.

“There, there, little Thirteen,” the vampire cooed. “You’ll like our new mistress. You’ll just die in her arms, I think.”

He turned and nodded to Woftam, who held up a large, burlap sack. He opened it, grinning through what was left of his teeth.

Thirteen didn’t like the look of the sack, and she certainly didn’t want these nasty creatures to put her inside it. She wanted to cry for help, but she knew that since no one knew where she was, no one would come to help her. But she yowled for her life anyway, praying that wherever he was now, the Wizard might hear her. But despite her struggling, hissing, yowling and spitting, the vampire lifted her over and dropped her inside the sack. She landed inside, catching her sharp little claws on the rough material. And she barely had time to look up before the sack closed over the top of her. She felt the back being lifted, swinging upward as if was. Then she smacked hard into what she could only imagine to be the rib bones of the ghoul Woftam. The smell of his rotting flesh was overwhelming, and the kitten thought she would soon be sick.

“All too easy,” she heard the voice of the vampire say.

“Perhaps this wizard isn’t as clever as the mistress believes,” Woftam answered.

“We don’t have him, you fool. We just have his miserable little puss.”

“But he will follow. The mistress has said it.”

“Oh, yes. He will follow.”

There was a moment of silence during which Thirteen held her breath.

“Of course we can eat him,” the vampire finally said. “When he comes, I will drain of his life’s blood, and then you can have the rest.”

Thirteen felt her heart drop. She had not only let her curiosity lead to her capture, but now she was quite possibly leading David to his unsuspecting death. Struggling vainly, she opened her tiny mouth and cried into the night



Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Part Five
The Graveyard

The south end of the forest abutted the cemetery, which formed a clearing in and around the dense trees. Like the forest itself, the Raven’s Point cemetery was ancient, featuring marble tombstones, monuments and mausoleums from a by-gone age, some nearly buried in underbrush and weeds. Unlike the newer section of the graveyard that was closer to the town proper, the older portion was rarely visited by anyone or anything other than the most wretched of forgotten ghosts, the most miserable ghouls or feeble of vampires.
Even though he was a vampire, Makdain considered himself neither feeble nor wretched, so he found himself appalled at trudging through the dense underbrush with the ghoul beside him. It was different with Woftam, he thought. The ghoul belonged here among the forgotten tombstones. He was practically ready to fall apart as it was. But Makdain was different. He was more demon than actual vampire, and his strength was unequaled. That, he mused, was what attracted Rage to him in the first place. She was powerful, that one, Makdain thought. Her greatest wish was to create mayhem, disorder, chaos and death. Since those were his desires as well, the match seemed pretty much made in hell.
Of course he hadn’t been much pleased at her comment about his being her number one minion. Makdain was minion to no creature, no matter how vile or desirable they might be. He was attracted to the fury that made up her nature and the pure evil at the core of her soul, and he longed to ravage her body as she had promised would happen once this little task was finished since undead sex was the most tumultuous of all. But once he was finished with her and she was lying in a swoon, he intended to let her know in no uncertain terms just whose minion was whose.
“What in name of Hades are we doing here?” Woftam asked, dispelling Makdain’s delicious thoughts of violence and domination.
“What do you care?” Makdain snapped.
“I don’t like this place,” Woftam said. “We’re not going to find no victims here, and there ain’t even nothin’ left to eat underground. I’m sick of all this walkin’ around, too. I’m losin’ shreds o’ skin on every damned bramble, and I ain’t got that much of it left.”
He stopped and shook the burlap bag he had been carrying slung over his shoulder at the vampire. There was no longer any movement in the bottom of it.
“And I tell you somethin’ else,” Woftam said angrily. “I’m sick o’ luggin’ this around. Since you wouldn’t let me eat it, you carry it fer a while.”
Makdain turned and glared through bright red eyes at the ghoul. “Would you be happier if I were to peel what little rotting flesh is left to you off those miserable bones and then scatter them all over this wretched place?” he snarled.
“It would be a damned sight more interestin’ than wanderin’ around like this. What are we doing here anyway? If we’re to do some murder like her nibs promised, we should be somewhere where there’s someone or somethin’ to murder, not standin’ around in someplace so forgotten that the darned flies don’t even come here anymore.”
As angry as Woftam’s outburst made him, Makdain had to admit that he wondered the same thing himself. There was no human, monster, sorcerer, witch or psychic that could even feel this part of the graveyard anymore, since it was as dead a place as dead could be. It was said to be so dead a place that it actually diminished the power of anyone foolish enough to enter it, drawing that power slowly away. Yet, Rage had been very specific about coming to this specific spot. He thought it was madness, but then that would be Rage’s nature. So he thought about the promise of her naked body as reward for the effort and simply agreed. Now that he was here, though, it did all seem a little pointless. If he was going to rip, tear and then drink, it did seem more likely that he would be able to do it in a more conducive spot that this.
“This is the place Rage wants us to be, so that’s why we’re here,” the vampire said without much conviction.
“I don’t trust her,” Woftam said. “She ain’t part of the natural order. Where did she come from all of a sudden anyway? There’s a pecking order, and she ain’t part of it. She just shows up outta nowhere and now she’s going to run the place? What are we even listening to her for? She ain’t any more evil than I am. She sure as heck ain’t anymore evil that you are. So what makes ‘er think she should be in charge?”
Makdain was taken aback, suddenly realizing that he had been wondering the same thing himself. He had convinced himself that he was following her absurd orders because of the promise of wild, animalistic, sick, twisted sex. But that really wasn’t it, and Makdain knew it. Now that he was out of her presence, away from her influence and particularly standing in this awful place, he had to admit the terrible truth.
He, the most terrible, powerful, ruthless and vicious vampire of them all, was afraid.
“She is powerful,” he said slowly, barely above a whisper. “I have not experienced such raw, power – such pure fury – since the terrible old gods left. I’m not even sure they could have matched it.”
Woftam seemed surprised at this response. What was left of the lids of his eyes opened wide upon hearing it, and his bones ratteled. “Then we should leave while we still can,” he said in a shaky voice. “She can’t feel us here, nobody can. We should just bury the damned cat and flee. There are other places to hunt besides Raven’s Point. Besides, what’s there going to be left to hunt if she converts everyone to evil as she says she has a mind to do? Are we just going to turn on each other? Where’s the blood in that?”
Makdain had no answer. But for the first time since the mission began, he had to admit that he felt confused. Part of him wanted to do exactly as Woftam suggested, although he knew there was no reason to bury the bag first. He was about to speak when a twig snapped a short distance away, startling him, and the words froze in his throat. He turned and stared through preternatural eyes in the direction of the sound.
Standing at the edge of the clearing beside a tree was the form of a man completely wrapped in a long black cloak. He had an oval face and thick, sandy brown hair. Makdain recognized him immediately, of course, and he smiled wickedly. Now it all made sense. Where else would you face a powerful magician than a place that robbed him of his power? There was, he thought, method to Rage’s madness after all.
Makdain didn’t know what Rage had against the Wizard, but he had gotten the impression that she feared him on some level. Perhaps they had dueled before and she had come away with the short end of the stick. Everyone who had ever faced him had come away like that, after all. But Makdain did know what he had against the sorcerer who was now standing before him. It was not easy to forget the stories of how, sometime ago before Makdain had been sired into the vampire fold, the Wizard had gone insane and made the elimination of the vampires of the Raven’s Point forest a holy quest. It was said in whispers that he had come dangerously close to driving his kind into extinction. Makdain had never thoroughly believed those stories, and he had always longed to face the Wizard himself, wondering what magical blood would do to increase his own considerable powers.
And now, thanks to Rage, he had the opportunity.
“Evening boys,” the Wizard said casually. “Out for a little stroll?”
“What business is it of yours?” Woftam said before Makdain could speak, his bones rattling again.
“You have something of mine,” the Wizard said, nodding toward the bag Woftam was still holding out in front of him. “I’d like it back.”
Woftam took a step behind Makdain. “What if we don’t want to give it to you?” he said.
The Wizard flashed a wide smile. “I don’t think I really need to describe the details to you, do I?” he asked. “Use your imagination, taking into account that it hasn’t fled along with your skin.”
Makdain had heard enough. “Your words mean nothing, wizard,” he said, his voice laced with malignancy. “You have no power here. I could open this bag and drink its contents while you watched, and there isn’t a thing you could do about it.”
The Wizard’s face remained curiously passive. “Really?” he said. “Why don’t you try it then?”
Makdain was about to speak when he felt a presence around him. Four other vampires were approaching the clearing, two of them coming from the forest behind him, and another two from the trees in the newer portion of the graveyard behind the Wizard. Rage had set her trap nicely, Makdain admitted to himself, although a bit put out over having been left out of the full extent of it.
“And what will you do?” Makdain taunted. “Pull a rabbit out of a hat for me? Do you have any idea who you are facing, who I am?”
“Yes, I know who you are. I’ve heard of Makdain. I’m sure you think you’re the personification of the big bad. I’m sure you’re a legend in your own mind. But you know what? To me you’re a joke. You’re nothing but a self-deluded, scum-sucking vamp who is very close to becoming a pile of dust.”
Anger such as he had never felt before exploded inside Makdain and he took a step forward, wanting nothing more than to shred the mocking form in front him into pieces and drink everything that was left. But he stopped suddenly as he saw the Wizard toss his cloak aside. He was wearing a black, sleeveless tunic beneath it, and there were silver braces covering each of his muscular biceps. His hands were resting casually on the hilt of a long, sharp, silver sword, the tip of which was lost in the undergrowth of the cemetery floor.
Makdain stopped dead in his tracks, remembering the stories of how the Wizard had used just such a weapon to slay many forest vampires before. He saw the Wizard smiling smugly at him, and he hated himself for his suddenly trepidation. Nonetheless, it was the better part of valor, he decided, to wait for the back up that was currently on its way. Let one or two of them face the sword, Makdain thought. The distraction would make it easier to reach him and then drain him dry.
So he laughed. “This is what the mighty so-called Wizard brings to me?” he said. “Who do you think you are all of a sudden, some sort of half-assed knight?”
“Used to be one once,” the Wizard said. “But I got killed fighting a dragon. Now I’m something else.”
The Wizard didn’t move, but Makdain could see his face change, and a sudden chill ran through his undead body.
“I’ll give you one chance,” the Wizard said, his voice steady and calm. “Have your dead friend bring the bag to me and lay it at my feet. If Thirteen is unharmed and you then tell me where I can find this creature you work for, then I’ll let you both live. I’ll even tell a couple of stories about you to enhance your so-called legend. But if you refuse, they’ll be picking up what’s left of you with a vacuum cleaner, I’ll collect my cat anyway and find this Rage on my own.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Woftam whispered from behind Makdain. “Don’t tell him anything.”
Makdain raised a hand to quiet the ghoul. “Your words are mighty, but there’s nothing behind them and we both know it,” he said. “You’ve wandered into a trap, you blundering fool, and you’re now in my power. So I’ll offer you a deal instead. Surrender the sword and I’ll let the cat go. It can wander the trashcans and alleyways of that miserable little town until some dog eats it for all I care. Then, since you have expressed an interest in meeting the mistress, I’ll take you to her. Then, tied to a pole, when she’s tired of toying with you, I’ll drain you myself.”
“How kind of you,” the Wizard said. “But not exactly what I had in mind.”
Suddenly, the four skulking vampires appeared into the clearing. Makdain’s smile widened.
“There’s one little thing you seemed to have forgotten,” he said.
“What’s that?” the Wizard replied.
“You have no….”
The word ‘choice’ was still forming on the vampire’s lips when the Wizard sprang forward with surprising speed into a perfectly executed fleche, swinging the blade in an arch severing Makdain’s head from his body. His head flew upwards a short way before exploding into dust at about the same time as his headless body did the same thing.
David whirled around, swinging the sword again, beheading both of the vampires attacking him from behind with a single stroke. He turned as the other two attacked, claw-like hands extended and frighteningly long fangs bared. He flung the sword at the nearest. It pierced the vampire’s chest, and the impact carried it backwards. It erupted into a shower of brown dust before its body had a chance to settle.
Maddened and enraged, the final Vampire kept coming. The Wizard met him, grabbing him by his tattered clothing and lifting him off his feet. As the vampire hissed and snapped in his grasp, he drove it against the broken limb of a nearby tree, releasing his grip as the creature turned into a cascade of small sandy specks.
Finding he was suddenly alone literally holding the bag, Woftam shook worse than ever as he watched the Wizard circle around him, retrieving his sword as he did.
“Here,” Woftam said shakily. “Take it. I didn’t like those vampires in the first place. I’m only here because they made me do it.”
As the Wizard approached, his sword flashed in the air again, severing the ghoul’s hand at the wrist. The bag fell to the ground noiselessly as the ghoul stepped back a pace in shock. The sword swung again, taking his head off, again, cleaving his body in half and one last time, and quartering it. What was left of Woftam fell in a shimmering, stinking heap.
The sword began to shrink in the Wizard’s hand until it had diminished to the size and shape of a wand, which promptly disappeared as he extended his hand. He kneeled down to retrieve the bag.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said to shape he could feel inside it. “I’m here now. Everything is going to be all right.”
He opened the bag slowly, fearing what he would find. He reached inside and brought out a small form.
But it wasn’t Thirteen. It was merely a bundle of tattered material tied together in a vaguely cat-like form. The Wizard stared at it for a moment, realizing the deception. Tossing it aside he raised both hands toward the sky.
“Rage!” he screamed through bared teeth.
“Rage!”
But his only answer was the silence of the night.



Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Part Six
The Cliff of Rage

On the edge of a stark, ragged cliff standing against a storm-angry sky, brightened occasionally by tongues of jagged lightening, Rage tossed her long hair aside and stared into the shimmering red sphere, enjoying the sight of the Wizard screaming into the night. She waved a once delicate but now hardened hand over it, and the tenuous bubble burst. She turned to Thirteen, who cowered in the corner of a cage resting on a large, heavy wooden table.

“Your Wizard did well against those vampires, kitten,” Rage said, smiling a little. “I didn’t really think they’d be able to subdue him, but one never knows. I wonder if he was making up that part about having been a knight once. If true, it would explain a lot about his insufferable, tenacious, overbearing, unrelenting declarations of love. It would also explain why always said he would slay dragons. All go, no stop, big nuts Wizard facing his worst fears.”

She smiled down at the cat that hissed and sputtered at her. “Well, good on ya’, Davey boy,” she snarled. “I’ll show you your worst fears, all right. And when I’m done you’ll think that dragon was a pet.”

She closed her eyes, letting the glorious anger and hatred she was feeling wash over her like a hot shower. “Yes,” she hissed slowly. “You’ll choke on every single one of those beautiful lies you ever told to pitiful starry-eyed little Grinningbook. Poor little thing: always able to analyze everyone else, but not quite bright enough to see through your insipid words of love and promises of happily ever after. Well, she’s wised up since then. Now she knows that any promise any man ever made to her evaporated as soon as they pulled up their pants and left. She knows that you’re no different, Davey-boy. And payback is a bitch.”

Rage hugged herself and twirled around once as if dancing to an unheard tune.

“What’s left of your pathetic little Grinningbook,” she said in a singsong voice, “only wants your head on a golden platter… with a candle on it.”

She laughed at the thought. Then she looked back down into the cage and smiled evilly.

“And you kitty,” she snarled. “What do you think of the new and improved? Nobody’s fool is a lot better than everybody’s chump, don’t you think?”

She drew very near to the cage. “Or do you miss your mum?” she cooed.

Thirteen suddenly became a spitting imagine of anger and betrayal herself.

“That’s my girl,” Rage said approvingly. “Remember when that little twit Grinningbook taught you to fly, sweetie? How would you like to do it again with me?”

The cat grew silent, watching her with suspicious eyes as Rage reached behind her and took an old, gnarled broom in both hands. “This is a little crude,” she said. “And we don’t actually need it. But it should make quite an impact on what’s left of that miserable town. It’s a pity, though, that the people I would most like to get even with have already gone. Remember them kitten? How about that that insufferable bartender, Nosta? Remember how he tried to get Davey-boy to slip Grinningbook a Mickey so that she would declare her love to him? How about the dead rotting preacher, Putrid? Remember how he tried to steal Grinningbook away from his friend, and when that didn’t work he plotted to kill her? What marvelous, vile intentions! The others were before your time, little Thirteen. But I remember them because she did. There was the banshee, Wicked. I remember how magic boy blatantly chased her around. And then there was the witch, Eerie Myst. I remember how old magic pants ignored poor little Grinningbook and left her sitting alone at the bar so he could get all kissy with her. Of course, no one else remembers any of it since Grinningbook isn’t even a thing of the past anymore. But I’d take out my rage on all of them had they not all left. To think that they created Raven’s Point and then one by one abandoned it to its current owners. Perhaps I should thank them. I couldn’t have done a more splendid job of ruining the town myself.”

Rage slammed the broom handle down on the table in front of Thirteen’s cage causing her to jump.

“Fortunately, my darl David is still here,” Rage went on. “Whatever I can’t do to those other fools, I will do to him. That ridiculous magic shop he moved his little Grinningbook into is a pile of rubble. The spells he put around it were supposed to make it impervious to attack. But I leveled it anyway, just like I destroyed that broom of yours.”

She drummed her fingers impatiently against the tabletop. “The only thing I can’t understand is why the two of you are still alive.”

Rage looked down at the cage maliciously. Then, making up her mind, she pointed both hands at it. A blood-red bubble of shimmering energy shot out, enveloping Thirteen, who yelped in surprise and pain. An instant later the energy enveloping her turned purple, then blue. Then it faded away.

Rage exploded. “Why does that happen!” she screamed. “Why won’t you just die?"

She tore open the cage and grabbed the dazed cat, pulling her out and slamming her onto the tip of the broom handle. Mounting the broom handle sidesaddle, Rage shot off the cliff edge into the storm clouds hanging oppressively about it. She circled in a wide arch and then dove straight down into a bolt of lightning. Blinding energy surrounded her, the broom and the small cat clinging to its tip for less that a heartbeat. Then she soared away, into the sky above Raven’s Point.

The town looked dead from the sky, a fact that caused Rage to glow a vivid shade of scarlet with the explosion of anger she felt at being denied an immediate crop of victims. The shimmering energy blanketed the ground below her, bathing the structures in its vehemence. Even though the residents of the town couldn’t be seen, someone had to be there, because the air was almost immediately filled with the sounds of angry screaming.

Rage smiled a little upon hearing it. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close to being enough. “You see, kitten?” she wailed over the sound of the wind whistling past. “We’ll start with a touch of discord. A little discontentment, if you will. Then we’ll let them stew with that for a while before bathing them in pure hatred. Then we’ll give them the means to destroy each other. I believe that fool Nosta kept a literal arsenal of weapons in his sleazy saloon when he abandoned it and left. Let’s leave it open so they can be found. Then these fools can kill each other properly. It’s not quite as satisfying as starting a full out war, but then this is a small place with relatively difficult access. So this will have to do.”

She zoomed down, hugging the ground like a fighter jet evading a radar net, passing an old man who stood upon seeing her yelled, and then threw a rock through a sweets shop window in anger. As the entrance to Vlad’s Tavern came into view, Rage extended a hand in front of her from which a small sphere of energy appeared and then shot forward.

But it didn’t strike or blow the door apart as Rage had intended it should do. Instead, it was deflected somehow and burst harmlessly against a brick wall. Rage wailed when she realized her aim had been off, circled at breakneck speed and dove toward the door again, intending to hit it at point blank range.

But suddenly, as she neared it, a bolt of pale blue energy shot upward striking the broom handle and cutting the tip neatly off of it. Rage pulled quickly away, avoiding a second strike from her unseen adversary. She twisted her head around to see the tip of the broom – and the small cat still clinging to – falling toward the pavement.

She frowned when she saw it slow to a near halt and then floats into the arms of a figure wrapped in a black cloak. Howling with rage, she left the hatred she felt radiate from her body. But the reddish glow seemed to dissipate as it neared the dark figure. He stepped into the glow of a nearby gas street lamp as Rage watched, confused at the ineffectiveness of her attack.

Her hatred turned to partial fear as she recognized the face of the Wizard staring up at her. He was hugging the cat, and his wand was raised. Rage wasn’t certain it would do anything to her, but she wasn’t as yet prepared to put it to any test. Abandoning the broom she had been riding, she burst into a sudden explosion of scarlet energy and was gone.

Now abandoned, the broom sailed downward, slowed and came to rest in the Wizard’s hand. He looked at the cat clinging to him for dear life and smiled at her. Then he looked at the spot in the sky where Rage had disappeared and then at the broom he held in his hand.

“This should prove useful,” he mused to himself.

He slung it over his shoulder and, cradling the still trembling kitten in his arm, turned toward the door of Vlad’s tavern.



Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Part Seven
Vlad’s Tavern


The door to Vlad’s Tavern flew open and the Wizard sauntered inside carrying his cat, Thirteen. The kitten was still shivering from her ordeal with Rage, so she was clinging with all claws to the tunic the Wizard wore beneath his long black cloak.
The Wizard made a gesture and the lights all came on. To his surprise, so did the juke box at the far end of the tavern. It began playing the last song someone had selected. The song was “Thank You,” by the artist Dido. David felt his heart drop as he heard the opening strains. “Thank You” had been he and Grinningbooks song. He had punched in the selection himself the last time the two of them had been there, dancing the night way inside her magical blue sphere. Of course, that event had been erased from time, so only he and Thirteen could even recall it. But since he had selected the song, it still continued to play.
He placed the broom Rage had left behind in her hasty departure on the bar and stared at it, wondering what use it would really be. He might be able to compel it to return to Rage’s lair, wherever that might be. The Wizard knew that facing Rage on her own ground would be a dire mistake. But he wondered if he might send the broom there with a challenge to meet him on ground of his choice. That might give him an edge no matter how slight.
Disregarding the broom for the time being, David set the still shivering cat on the bar top and moved behind it to find a saucer. He poured some milk he found in the fridge into it and pushed it toward the cat.
“Here you go, sweetheart,” he said. “Drink some. It will do you a world of good. You’ve had quite an ordeal.”
“Meow,” Thirteen said, which was to say that she agreed.
David watched her lick timidly at the milk for a moment. When he saw that she had calmed down a little, he stroked her head.
“Tell me what happened after you disobeyed me and wandered away from the realm of the Ancients,” he said.
Thirteen looked up timidly with wide, questioning eyes.
“No,” David said, shaking his head from side to side. “I’m not going to get angry and punish you for not listening to me. But I need to know what happened. And don’t hold back on the details. Every little thing is important. I need to know as much as I can if I’m going to stand any chance at all of sending this monster back to the hell she so richly deserves and bringing Grinningbook back to us.”
Thirteen understood, so after giving her front paws a quick wash, she told the Wizard her story.
After they’d caught her, Makdain the vampire and Woftam the ghoul stuffed her into a burlap sack from which she couldn’t see much. But she was only inside it a short time before there was a stomach wrenching feeling of having traveled at incredible speed, and then the sack was opened and she was roughly forced into a cage. Rage was there, supervising the two monsters, warning them to be careful. Thirteen said her heart had raced at first upon seeing her, since Rage looked so very much like the woman whose body she had absorbed. She even smelled like Grinningbook, and Thirteen thought she’d been rescued. But the malevolence of the creature that had assumed Grinningbook’s form soon showed itself, convincing the kitten that not only wasn’t she safe, but that she was in worst shape that she had been in the clutches of the fiends who caught her.
She told the Wizard about how Rage had set up the trap in the cemetery and then watched what happened. She told him about Rage’s rantings, the people she mentioned and the hatred she had expressed towards him. She told him as much as she could remember about the way Rage had tried to kill her in the cage and the dizzying flight into town. David listened patiently, raising a questioning eyebrow every now and then. But he didn’t interrupt or say a word until Thirteen had finished.
“She tried to kill you, but she couldn’t,” he said. Since it was more of a statement than a question, Thirteen didn’t reply.
David paced, thinking about this puzzling fact. “If Rage is as all powerful as Chu Fang seemed to think she was, then we should have been rendered into atoms the first time she struck,” he said. “Since she still couldn’t kill you, then I was right about the inner turmoil effecting her. Part of our Grinningbook is still there. That means that part of Rage is still human.”
The kitten meowed an obvious queston.
“I’ll tell you how I know,” David said. “If part of Grinningbook wasn’t still effecting her, none of what Rage did would be personal. If she were pure elemental force as Chu Fang said, then she would go about her business of creating havoc and discord with a single thought about you or me. If she were in a pure and complete form, plotting against me personally would be about as likely as a bolt of lightning targeting a particular individual out of a need for revenge.”
Thirteen clearly didn’t understand this, so she mewed another question instead.
“I don’t exactly know how to bring Grinningbook to the surface yet,” the Wizard said, turning towards the kitten and answering her question as best he could. “I used a transformation spell before cutting the tip off the broom handle. But it dissipated long before it ever got there.”
The cat did her best to frown. David shrugged in response.
“Hey, I didn’t think it would work,” he said. “But you never really know until you try.”
Suddenly, he turned at the sound of angry voices in the distance outside accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. He shook his head. “Whatever we do,” he said. “We have to do soon before this spreads. Raven’s Point is in shambles as it is. If Rage gets a solid foothold, there won’t be anything left to salvage.”
“Meow?” Thirteen said, suddenly.
“Yes,” the Wizard said grimly. “And if that happens, Grinningbook will be lost to us forever.”
Thirteen lowered herself and began licking her paw.
“The only plan I’ve come up with so far probably won’t work either,” the Wizard said, watching her. “I can’t beat an element, there’s no magic powerful enough to do that. But it occurred to me that if I throw everything at my disposal at her – every spell, every curse, every form of energy – it might weaken Rage enough to allow Grinningbook to fight her way out.”
Thirteen asked if the plan even had a vague chance of success.
The Wizard shrugged. “Chu Fang said I might as well throw rocks for all the good it would do,” he said. “He said that even if I did manage to weaken Rage a little, there might not be enough of Grinningbook’s essence left to fight its way out of a wet paper bag. He said that relying on her help is tantamount to suicide.”
He was silent for a long time.
“But I think Chu Fang is wrong,” the Wizard said, finally looking up. “He doesn’t know the power of the love we shared. It was strong enough to allow her to use the blue energy for the first time in her life. I believe it is still strong enough to survive even inside the personification of rage. If I can weaken those bonds enough, I know she’ll come back.”
Thirteen asked him what would happen if it didn’t work. David flashed a wry little smile and shrugged his shoulders. “In that case, it won’t matter,” he said. “If I’m wrong and Chu Fang is right, then you and I and Grinningbook and everything we’ve ever known will be gone anyway, and only rubble, hatred and chaos will remain. That being the case, I’d say this is a sort of do or die situation if there was one, wouldn’t you?”
Thirteen looked down glumbly.
“Don’t look so down in the mount, little one,” David said encouragingly. “This isn’t the first time I’ve faced a situation this dire. Once upon a time a long time ago in a village on the literal edge of nowhere, I stood alone to protect a village from a rampaging dragon. I was a young, brash, mostly untried Knight of the realm then. And so I faced it in a clearing near the hills in which it lived, lifting my shield as challenge when it appeared. Had I been thoroughly prepared, I would have come armed to the teeth with a hundred warriors as back up. But I thought it a matter of honor, so I was only armed with a sword. Even though, when the confrontation came, I was able to bury that sword right through its scales, I wasn’t able to do it before the dragon buried one of its talons deep into my chest. While it fluttered off to ultimately fall and die, I was left in a bloody heap on the field. I thought it was over. But on the very last heartbeat of my young and foolish life, Chu Fang appeared. He not only saved me, but he whisked me away to the realm of the ancients where he taught me the Way of the Wand. I’ve been a Wizard ever since. I’ve felt that every day since has been a rare and precious gift. So if I fail against Rage, it will only be the final conclusion to what that dragon started so very long ago. But it won’t come to that, because despite the odds, we have a very powerful ally to help guide our path.”
“Meow?” Thirteen asked.
The Wizard smiled. “Love finds a way,” he said.
Suddenly there was the crash of splintering glass and the door to the tavern flew inwards, breaking loose from its hinges. David wheeled around to see a thin form bursting inside. It was a scarecrow teetering on wooden legs. Dry straw jutted from the old pair of pants and worn flannel shirt it had been dressed in, and its Jack o’ Lantern head leered menacingly. Laughing maniacally, it opened its mouth and a jet of flame sprang outward.
Thirteen leapt out of the way as the fire fried the spot she had been sitting on. The Wizard immediately had his wand in hand and fired a burst of green energy at the scarecrow, which immediately burst apart in a shower of straw and splinters. Its pumpkin head wheeled into the air and shattered on the tavern floor.
David ran to the door with Thirteen at his heels. He stopped just outside. Other scarecrows were rampaging up and down the street, setting everything that would burn on fire before them. Ghostly shapes whirled around them, tossing everything that wasn’t nailed down into the air and into the streets.
“The scarecrows of Raven’s Hollow are loose,” David cried over the tumult. “The poltergeists have come with them. This has to be Rage’s doing. You never see them other than Halloween nights when the moon is full, or occasionally on the Feast of Saint George, but never like this.”
He turned as a man behind him cried out in pain. A scarecrow had pinned against a wall and was slowly suffocating him with a wooden stump. The Wizard blasted it apart, setting the man free. Enraged, the man ran toward the Wizard with his fists clenched. The Wizard waved a hand before him and the man immediately fell into a magically induced form of sleep. The Wizard kneeled before him as Thirteen watched from a relatively safe position.
“It’s the delivery man,” the Wizard said. “The man who brought the trees to Vlad’s on Christmas night. He’s been affected as well.”
Picking up the kitten, the Wizard dashed back into Vlad’s. He ran to the bar top where the broom was still setting. Extending his hands before him, he caused the broom to rise. Then, after muttering a few words, he nodded his head and watched it whisk away through the open door and into the night.
“Meow?” Thirteen asked.
“Things are out of control,” the Wizard said. “We can’t wait. We have to deal with this now. So I just raised the shield. We’ll meet her at our counterpart of her own realm, on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean.”
Thirteen asked why he had chosen that spot.
“Since it is so similar to the realm she has chosen herself, being in a place like it might distract her, cause her to make mistakes.”
He picked up the kitten and winked at her. “Besides,” he said, smiling. “I have a friend there who might just be of some help.”
Ducking another stone that suddenly flew through the window, David used his wand to open another portal, and with Thirteen in tow, stepped through it and was gone.




Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Episode Eight:
Poseidon’s Height



The portal appeared in the base of the single tree growing at the edge of a sheer stark cliff overlooking the tumultuous ocean that was commonly known as Poseidon’s Height. The flat surface of the bluff itself was shaped vaguely like a giant human handprint – which was why the point had earned its name. Legend had it that the ancient god of the sea came out of the ocean on a gigantic wave and steadied himself by leaning on the bluff to take a look inland.
The Wizard thought about this as he stepped from the portal along with Thirteen and took a long look around. He noticed that nothing had grown in the sandy area of the handprint itself since the last time he’d been there. But there was something different about the Height. The last time he’d been here there hadn’t been a young, thin man with bushy blond hair wearing a Hawaiian shirt so loud that it glowed under starlight sitting in a sand chair with a beer in his hand looking out over the bluff.
But the sight of him sitting there now made the Wizard smile.
Thirteen, on the other hand, meowed questioningly as if she wasn’t sure who the man was or why he was sitting there in such an isolated place.
“Don’t worry, kitten,” the Wizard said, looking down at the cat at his feet. “This an old friend.”
“Meow?”
“No, you’ve never met him. But I’ve known him for a very long time.”
The young man in the sand chair turned slowly to the sound of the Wizard’s voice. He raised the pair of sunglasses from his eyes and flashed a wide, knowing smile.
“Dude,” he said. “Long time no see. What’s shakin’?”
The Wizard shook his head, flashing a smile himself. “Still haven’t lost the beach bum persona, I see,” he said, sauntering toward the young man.
He stood and offered the Wizard a hand to shake. “Couldn’t pass up all the sponsor endorsements, to say nothing of all the free boards and the babes,” he said. “Besides, I like the lifestyle, and it’s a little hard to drop into some tasty waves when you’re sixty feet tall and carrying a trident. Kinda turns everyone off, if you know what I mean.”
“You’ll never change,” the Wizard said.
“Can’t say the same for you, though. Last time I saw you was on a beach in Costa Rica. You were wearing a t-shirt from Papas and Beer and a pair of faded red board shorts. Now look at you all decked out in black like some sort of bad ass. You haven’t gone Darth Vadar on me, have you dude?”
The Wizard laughed. “Hardly,” he said.
“Good. When I got your message through the usual channels, I was a little concerned. So what’s up?”
Thirteen looked up and meowed at the stranger, distracting David before he could speak. He looked down at the questioning look on the kitten’s face.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” David said. “I should have told you he’d be here.”
“Talking to cats now, dude?” the stranger said, brushing a few strands of hair out of his face. “Ever think that maybe you’ve been a bachelor too long?”
“This isn’t just any cat,” the Wizard said. “Her name is Thirteen, and Grinningbook gave her to me on Christmas, just before she wrapped me in a bubble of blue energy and shared a part of her soul with me. This kitten shares the same power. She’s connected to us both.”
“Well, I’m sure that means something. But it’s out of my league. More in Aphrodite’s park, if you know what I mean.”
Thirteen looked at the man with burning curiosity. She turned to David and meowed a question.
“Yes,” David said in response. “He is a friend. Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, this is Poseidon, Thirteen, the god of the seas, god of tempests, and with all due respect to Thor, the god of the weather.”
Poseidon raised a disapproving eyebrow.
The Wizard smiled. “He’s also renown as the god of bad temper, childish tantrums and he’s a general, over all pain in the ass.”
He looked up at the ancient god in human disguise and smiled.
“But he’s also a very good friend who has come here to help.”
Poseidon looked down and kicked at the ground. “Well, that’s about half right,” he said. “I came because I am a friend. But I can’t help.”
David looked at him in astonishment. “But I thought…” he stammered.
The god of the sea raised a hand, stopping him before he could finish. “Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “I told you when I took you out of that last little problem you had a while back that my debt to you was paid and I might not be able to help you the next time, remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” David muttered, looking crestfallen.
Poseidon frowned. “Listen dude, I may be an antique, but I’m not a fool,” he said. “I know what you’re facing. I got word the minute she appeared again. But the powers that be have let me know in no uncertain terms that I can’t stand in the way or interfere. I couldn’t help you if I wanted.”
“Then why did you come?”
“To try and convince you to turn around and run, dude. You don’t realize what you’re facing. I wouldn’t want to face off with an elemental, and I’m a god. You may be great shakes as far as the mysto types go, but you’re way out of your league in this. Believe me, I know. If that thing you’ve challenged wasn’t still partially mortal, it would have swept you away like a leaf in a storm. Even as she is, she’s as powerful as an immortal. And from what I hear, she’s really pissed.”
“You don’t understand. She’s holding Grinningbook captive. She’s stolen her very existence. If I don’t face her now, before she grows in power, Grinningbook has no chance.”
Poseidon shook his head. “Dude,” he said. “There are plenty of chicks out there. Let this one go and move on. Otherwise, the next time I visit you it will be in the afterlife.”
The Wizard shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Kris is more than just a chick. She’s more than a friend, a lover or even a wife. She’s part of me. I have half of her soul, and she has half of mine. I can’t even imagine life without her. And if there’s even the most remote chance of bringing her back, then I have to take it.”
Poseidon sighed, shaking his head. “What was it old Willy Shakespeare said? ‘What fools these mortals be?’” he said. “Maybe I should have sent Aphrodite. She just loves this ultimate sacrifice stuff. Personally, I think it’s a waste.”
“Are you trying to tell me there’s nothing I can do?” David said indignantly.
“Pretty much.”
“What about the Way of the Wand? You know the power. It saved you once.”
“You were lucky and it was unprepared. This thing will be. Most of your spells won’t work, and she’ll deflect the ones that do. It doesn’t matter what kind of energy you use. She’ll just shrug it off and keep on coming. You’d have a better chance throwing the cat at her.”
“Is that your best suggestion?”
Poseidon signed, exasperated. “Listen, dude,” he said. “If you’re going to last at all, just keep your cool. If you give in to the anger, you’re finished.”
“I’ve seen what happens,” David said, thinking of the delivery man he’d saved from the scarecrow just outside Vlad’s tavern. “How do I fight it?”
“I don’t know. Feint. Make faces. Move around a lot. You say this lady of yours could use the blue energy and that you have half her soul. So use it as a shield. It may keep the rage away for a bit. Then again, it might not. I’m just not sure. Taking this thing on is like trying to box with a lightning bolt.”
Both man and god were silent for a long moment. “You don’t think I have much of a chance, do you?” the Wizard finally asked.
“What, have I been talking to myself,” Poseidon said angrily. “I’ve known all the greats – Chu Fang, Sokurra, Merlin, Houdini and Stephen Strange – and none of them could hold a candle to you. But all of you put together wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m sorry to see go down like this. But at least it’s in the grand heroic tradition, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” David admitted. “I guess it is.”
Poseidon shook his head again, reaching down for the sand chair he had been sitting in. “I guess everybody’s got to meet their own personal Waterloo sooner or later,” he said. “Well, everybody who isn’t a god, that is.”
He picked up the chair and trudged wearily toward the edge of the cliff. He turned and looked at the Wizard as if it was for the very last time. “Keep your guard up, dude,” he called. “Maybe fate will intervene. Stranger things have happened.”
Poseidon turned and leapt off the cliff into the raging ocean below. The Wizard stared at the bare cliff for a long time. Finally, he looked down at Thirteen, who was rubbing her fur against his leg. He picked her up, cradled her in one arm and slowly stroked her.
“Looks like it’s just us, honey,” he said. “The sea god was my ace in the hole. Guess you just can’t depend on anybody these days, especially not a half-mad mythological deity.”
“Meow,” Thirteen said, stating that maybe things weren’t as bad as Poseidon made them seem.
“No?” the Wizard said through a sardonic smile.
Thirteen shook her head. Then she said, meowing again, that Rage couldn’t kill her before, maybe she couldn’t kill the both of them now.
“But I’ve gotten much stronger since then,” a familiar voice with a distinctive Australian accent said from the darkness.
David reacted immediately, setting Thirteen on the ground and drawing his wand.
“Go, run,” he whispered to the cat. “Hide behind the tree.”
Thirteen stood frozen, unsure what to do.
“For once in your life, listen to me,” he said. “Hide!”
Thirteen bolted for the tree as something came careening down from the sky. The Wizard looked up as the broomstick he had sent to Rage stuck in the ground at his feet.
“I got your invitation,” she said again. “And yes, I’d love to dance.”
The figure of a small woman stepped into view. She had an oval face and long hair that fell over both shoulders. She was wearing a blue velvet top and a long, wrap-around black skirt with a pattern of elephants around it.
She stopped and smiled at the Wizard. “Hello, darl,” she said. “It’s been awhile.”
At first the Wizard’s heart soared upon seeing her, since she was the exact duplicate of the way Grinningbook had looked the last time he’d taken her dancing at Vlad’s Tavern. He remembered the way they floated in the air, locked in each other’s arms. Then he remembered the blue sphere surrounding them, and what happened inside it. But he had to remind himself that the figure standing before him was a lie. It was simply a mockery of Grinningbook, and it was there to kill him.
“Why don’t you show your real self?” he spat at her, feeling the anger at seeing Rage in the form of the woman whose life she had stolen rising in him. “You insult her memory by looking like that.”
“She has no memory,” Rage said in a mocking tone. “The last pathetic creature on the planet who remembers her is standing in front of me. That means that very soon there won’t be anyone.”
The Wizard fought hard to quell the sudden anger beginning to burn like an internal flame, remembering what Poseidon had told him. He concentrated on Grinningbook instead, thinking about what it was going to be like to see her again…to hold her again…to kiss her…
A smile spread across his face that took Rage aback. “You can’t overwhelm me with your vehemence as easily as you did the villagers, vicious,” the Wizard said. “I’m on to your little game, and I really don’t want to play. So why don’t you just let Kris go before something bad happens to you?”
Rage didn’t respond. She glared at the Wizard through Grinningbooks blue-green eyes for a moment, and then she began to change. Her body boated to three times its size, bursting and shredding the clothes she was wearing. Then it began to take on another form. She changed from human to reptilian as the Wizard watched, growing larger and larger all the time. Her face extended into a beak-shaped snout, her legs lengthened even as her arms shortened and her hands became talon claws, and wings sprouted from her back.
David froze at the sight of the frightening creature metamorphosing before his very eyes. He’d seen it before. He’d faced it on a barren plane when he was young longer ago than he liked to admit. And it still haunted his nightmares.
Maybe Rage hadn’t verbally answered his challenge, David thought. But she was speaking now.
His wand expanded in his hand until it assumed the shape of the sword he’d used against the vampire in the forgotten cemetery. When it reached its full size and shape, he launched forward, the sword flashing, his voice a challenging cry, the black cloak flapping like a giant bat’s wing behind him.
Rage hesitated in face of the assault, flapping her dragon’s wings to hold her in place as if she were suddenly confused. The Wizard smiled remembering the original dragon, the one that had killed him. It hadn’t hesitated for an instant. But this, he reminded himself, wasn’t that dragon. In fact, it wasn’t actually a dragon at all. It was nothing but a lie, standing in the way of truth.
The dragon shot its head forward to counter the quick moving figure running toward it, issuing a long stream of fire from its mouth. But it was too slow. The Wizard moved beneath it and drove his silver sword deep into its underbelly.
The dragon squealed with pain and anger as the Wizard wrenched the blade free. It wheeled high in the air, did a single loop and then came crashing down to the edge of the cliff where it began to quickly shrink back down to human form.
Breathing hard, the Wizard watched the transformation, his sword held at the ready, wondering what was coming next. The bloody, naked form of Grinningbook stood amidst the swirling dust. A Gaping wound was opened just below her left breast, and blood gushed and spurted from it.
She looked down at the damage that had been done to her and then raised her gore-covered hands in the air. “How could you do this to me?” she wailed in Kris’s voice. “I thought you loved me.”
The scene was heart rending. The Wizard had to fight to remind himself that it wasn’t real. It was, he told himself, nothing but another deception. “Enough subterfuge,” he cried. “Give her up, Rage. This has gone about far enough.”
Christine grinned through bloody teeth. “Enough?” she said, giggling. “Just like any man, aren’t you, Davey-boy? Thirty seconds and you’re ready to fall asleep. But I’m not through yet. I’m in the mood for something a little hotter.”
Rage suddenly ignited into flame with an explosive pop. David shielded his eyes from the suddenly brightness that filled the Height and stepped back a pace from the intense heat. The sword shrank quickly back into the wand. As he aimed it, thinking numbly of a spell to cast, a gigantic wave from the sea below rose up and washed over the bluff, drenching Rage in a cascade of white water and foam.
The Wizard smiled, his wand arm still extended before him. “Poseidon,” he said.
Realizing the advantage might be short lived, the Wizard pulled his cloak off and sent it twirling in the air. It wrapped itself around Rage’s still sizzling and smoking body. It was an old disappearing trick Houdini taught him. If it worked, Rage would vanish to a neutral universe – sort of a cosmic holding area – where it would be much easier to deal with her.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Rage sparked back to life despite the drenching and the Wizard’s cloak was instantly rendered to a shower of ashes before it could even touch her. Rage’s body had ignited again, but this time it wasn’t wrapped in flame. The Wizard covered his eyes. Her body had become blistering red with hatred. It radiated from her, scorching him as if it were real fire.
David shrank back, never before in his life having felt such raw, unrestricted fury. It wasn’t like any emotion he had ever felt or experienced. It was like a living, palatable thing. It crawled inside his guts and caused him to tremble at the sheer awesome force.
He was afraid. It was like it had been on the field that day when the dragon came. The fear wrapped around him as he had intended his cloak to do to Rage. His mouth and throat went dry. He fought to keep calm, keep his footing, fight back. He raised his wand and fired a bolt of bright green energy at into the intensifying field of red before him. But it had no effect. If anything, the blinding red light only grew brighter as it seemed to absorb the energy.
David waved his hand, sending the same sleeping spell he’d used outside Vlad’s Tavern. He heard a chuckling sound in response.
“Is this the best the mighty Wizard of Raven’s Point can do?” Rage said, her voice seemingly amplified to an ear-splitting level. “I expected so much more.”
Crouching, David aimed the wand and a bolt of lightning shot out of it crackling around the advancing form of rage. The red glared dimmed, but only by a fraction. There was a scream of pain and anger, and then a bubble of bright red energy shot out at the Wizards wand hand. It exploded into a cloud of pure energy that numbed the Wizard’s hand and sent the wand spinning from it.
Before he could act, a second bubble shot at him followed by a third. The first of them hit him in the chest, throwing him violently backwards through the air. He hit the dirt hard, slid a few feet, and tried to rise to his feet. The second energy sphere hit him in the shoulder, spinning him around. He fell to the earth again, his face in the dirt. His shoulder was numb and he couldn’t feel his arm at all. He tried to raise it to cast a defensive spell to protect himself, but it was a useless gesture.
He managed to turn over just as Rage loomed above him.
“Now it ends,” she spat.
He saw two claw-like hands extend toward him. Then he saw the flash of red energy gush from them. He felt something grip his heart, squeezing it, slowing it. He tried to fight back, but all he could manage to do was involuntarily jerk as the energy rained down. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t even scream.
A buzzing developed in his ears and the world around him began to swim and grow dim. Although he didn’t know it, he was not only dying, but there were only four heartbeats remaining to his life.
Then there were three.
Then there were only two.




Your friendly neighborhood Wizard

The Search for Grinningbook
Episode Nine
The Realm of the Mind


Within the span of a single heartbeat, Grinningbook and the Wizard were wandering down a long, dimly lit corridor lined with unmarked doors.

They were looking for something that had been lost. It seemed to the Wizard that Grinningbook had told him that she’s mislaid her favorite cup somewhere in the magic shop, and since she hadn’t been living in the Caws and Effects, with it’s many passages that appeared and disappeared seemingly at will, for very long, she needed help in finding it. That’s why the Wizard was currently wandering through her recent memories, which always looked like this – a bland corridor lined with a variety of doors. But although the explanation for why he was here seemed plausible enough on the surface, somehow the Wizard knew that either the missing cup wasn’t really what he was after, or that it was symbolizing something else entirely. What that might be was something the Wizard didn’t know. That he would find the answer – one way or the other – behind one of the doors was a certainty.

Entering each other’s minds was something the Wizard and Grinningbook had learned to do almost from the very beginning, so he had been down this corridor many times before. Some of the doors lead to places he was very familiar with. Others were filled with mysteries.

Grinningbook shrugged her shoulders looking at the seemingly endless doors. “It has to be there somewhere,” she said, although she sounded doubtful.

The Wizard stopped before one of the doors. Since the search was arbitrary and one door looked pretty much the same as the next, he decided to start with the nearest. “Let's try this one,” he said.

He turned the knob and pushed the door inward. He looked inside the dark room, blinking. When he turned back to corridor, it was only to find that Christine had faded away. But that wasn’t unusual. They both faded in and out while searching around in each other’s minds, which was why the results were often more surprising than expected, and things were usually so difficult to find.

The Wizard found the completely black room a great deal more unusual. It could mean that the place harbored a secret Grinningbook didn’t want to face. Then again, it could mean next to nothing at all. The Wizard decided to have a look around anyway.

He reached inside and felt around the wall.

“I can't see very well in here,” he said aloud in case Grinningbook was somewhere nearby. “Where's a light switch?”

To his surprise, his hand fell onto a switch almost as soon as he said it. “Watch out when I flip it on” he warned. “You might find yourself having a sudden inspiration.”

He heard Grinningbook laugh from somewhere distant and somewhere nearby. It was always like that inside the mind. At first the Wizard had found it unsettling. But now he was used to it.

“Well at least I'm sitting,” her echoing voice said.

The Wizard suddenly wondered if he were hearing her mental voice or if she were speaking aloud in the real world and he was hearing her real voice. He felt a distant pang of loss. He hadn’t heard her real voice since before waking on the ruins of the Caws and Effects so seemingly long ago. He’d heard it spoken by Rage, of course, but that was a taunting perversion. This wasn’t. He wondered if it had something to do with the dark room. He stared into, his fingers poised on the light switch.

Something was wrong, he thought, shaking his head. Perhaps this room was affecting his memory somehow. He wondered why he had suddenly been thinking about the Caws and Effects being in ruins, when he knew perfectly well that he was sitting in his study right now, and that Grinningbook was sitting beside him. He thought about the name he’d just thought of, Rage. He muttered it to himself several times, trying to think of something it related to. He couldn’t think of a thing.

He shook his head, frowned, and then he turned back to the task at hand.

“Here goes,” he said, flipping the light switch on.

The room flooded with light and color. “Well, well, well,” he said, amazed. “What have we got in here?”

The room was not only a place he had never been, it was one he wouldn’t have expected. Most of Grinningbook’s memories were at least well organized even if they didn’t make much immediate sense. But this one was jumbled and chaotic.

“What is it?” Grinningbook’s voice said, drifting around him.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “This is all very different. Different colors: different forms. Hard to describe since everything keeps shifting around, changing from one thing to another.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting,” Grinningbook said, sounding both very far away and very near by. “But is my cup in there?”

The Wizard thought about the cup, but it seemed more and more likely that he should be considering something else instead. “There was a cup but it just turned into a stuffed koala bear,” the Wizard said.

“Oh...I know where you are!”

“Where?”

“The room of indecision!”

The Wizard looked around, fascinated at what he saw. “Is that what this is?” he asked.

“Get out of there fast,” Grinningbook said with urgency.

“I don't know,” David said. “Hard to decide. What should I do?”

“As you are told,” Kris said with authority. “Get out!”

But that wasn’t going to be as simple as it seemed. “Uh oh,” the Wizard said, blinking. “The door just turned into a penguin and it's waddling away.”

Now Grinningbook sounded alarmed. “Forget the penguin,” she said. “It's to late. Grab something else, something that isn’t alive.”

The Wizard looked around, but everything was confusing. He focused on something floating slowly past him. “How about this bust of Queen Victoria?” he said. “That's good and solid.”

He reached out, grabbing hold of the marble bust. Things did seem to center and calm down a little. “Now what?” he said, blinking around.

Grinningbook sounded annoyed. “Put her down before she talks your ears off.”

To David’s surprise, the marble lips of the bust were moving, whispering absurdities. “How could she be talking to me,” the Wizard mused. “She's just a statue. So why is she asking me about the price of honey in New Deli?”

Grinningbook ignored him. “Look around for a dolls house,” she said her voice reverberating.

David fought to focus. He released the odd bust, which floated away, still murmuring softly. He looked around at the ever-changing forms that couldn’t seem to decide exactly what they were trying – or even wanted – to become. Finally, he spotted a large Victorian doll’s house setting on an antique walnut table against what he assumed must be a wall.

“Okay,” he said, sounding relieved. “I see the dolls house.”

“Open the door,” Grinningbook’s voice said softly. “Trust me, you'll fit”

He floated over to it, swimming through the confusing shapes and forms appearing and disappeared before him. He placed his hands on the table, surprised at the feeling of solidity beneath his hands. He reached for the door of the house slowly, fearing it might change into something else before he could open it. But it didn’t.

“Alright,” he said, concentrating. “I’m opening the door. But the opening is so small.”

The door swung open, and he looked inside. “There’s a whole house in here, and everything is the right size,” he said, amazed. “How totally odd.”

“Well, go in,” Grinningbook said with a huge smile present in her voice. The Wizard looked around him, since her voice had sounded like it had been spoken into his ear. But she was nowhere to be seen. He turned back around quickly and stared inside the doorway. There was a small figure standing inside smiling back at him. Without hesitation he pressed himself forward, longing to be inside. Somehow, he either shrank to the right proportion, or the doll’s house grew instantly around him. But either way, he suddenly found himself inside.

Christine stood before him wearing a short, low-cut black velvet dress with thin straps that disappeared beneath her long hair. A very large smile spread across her face as she saw him.

“Darling, what are you doing in here?” he said, fearing she were an illusion like everything else he’s seen in the confusing room.

“This is my home away from home,” she said.

“Well, you look beautiful,” he said. “Isn't that the dress I got for you on Valentine's Day?”

She smiled again and turned around in a slow circle. “Fits nice huh?” she asked.

“Beautifully. You look good in black.”

“Ummmm...”
David drank in the delicious sight of her, realizing how very much he had missed seeing her, hoping she wouldn’t just disappear again as mental forms so often did.

“Would you mind very much if I kissed you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she said with a smile.

Walking up to this vision before him, feeling oddly nervous, he wiped a strand away from her smiling face, pausing a moment to look at it. Then he drew her face close to his until their lips touched. A thrilling sensation flashed up and down his body, and he felt the breath momentarily leaving him.

“Would you mind holding me?” she whispered.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I was hoping you'd ask.”

He drew her body close to his, wrapping his arms around her. He felt her face against his chest and her arms around his waist. He held her that way, feeling her beating heart, smelling her hair, kissing her forehead. She hugged him back a little tighter as he did, and then held each other that way for a long, long, time.

“I've missed holding you, darling,” he said.

“So have I darl,” she said. “So have I.”

Stroking her hair, he tilted her head back and gently kissed her lips again. She kissed him back, and he felt his heart skipping a beat. It didn’t feel like a memory or simple imagination. This felt somehow very real.

“Darl?” Grinningbook said before he could wonder about it too much.

“Yes, darling?” he answered breathlessly.

“I have a den in this house,” she said softly. “It has wall to wall shelves full of books. It even has one of those ladders that slides along the walls. Would you like to see it?”

Although he didn’t know why, it suddenly seemed extremely important to him that he do just that. “Yes,” he said. “Very much so.”

“Okay...come with me.”

Almost dreamily, he lifted his hand toward her.

And I reach out and take your hand in mine, Grinningbook’s mind seemed to whisper to him. And lead the way. We walk down the hallway and in through a door on the right.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “And step in here.”

He nodded, and her mind spoke to him again.

I lead you into the den and tell you to open your eyes.

The Wizard’s eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the soft light in the room.

“You like?” Grinningbook asked.

All four walls of the large room were lined, ceiling to floor with shelves of books. A rail ran along the ceiling, and attached to it was tall ladder on tracks. Beside the door stood a suit of armor, it’s gloved hands holding a sliver sword. David recognized it immediately. It was the armor he’d worn before learning the way of the wand. It was the same suit of armor that had failed to protect him on the day the dragon killed him. But it was intact now, complete. There was no blood on it or a hole in the breastplate drilled into it by a sharp talon. It was complete, polished, shining and proud.

He wondered distantly what it was doing standing there in a place created in Grinningbook’s mind where it shouldn’t have actually been. But he didn’t stop to consider the meaning of it as his eyes swept the rest of the room. Soft light rained down from a white globe suspended beneath and slowly turning ceiling fan. The polished hardwood floor was partially covered with a dark blue Persian rug. Four plush wing chairs opposed each other on either side of a large, low coffee table.

The Wizard nodded his approval. “Yes,” he said. “I like this very much.”

“Come over here,” Grinningbook said, taking his hand again. “I want to show you the coffee table.”

She led him in front of it, and they looked down on it together. “This table was hand carved. Nice mahogany huh?”

“Beautiful.”

“Kneel down here darl and take a closer look at the picture.”

David knelt down to see the picture better. Christine knelt beside him, pointing at the carved images near the table’s edge.

“Now start here at this end” she said. “I'll walk you through it.”

“All right,” David said. “You be my guide.”

“See these people here? They are my parents. My brother is there, and I'm the little baby. See this plane? I was on there, and we flew for days.”

Her finger trailed in a line. “And here I am one my first day at school,” she continued. “And all my friends. Here I am at high school.”

“You were very pretty,” David said.

She turned and kissed his cheek. “Ah,” she said, looking back at the curious table. “Here I am with Michael. He's so small, like he will break. And then, over here, I have Michael at three, and Nicole is the baby. Oh, and here is Amanda. She is new…and small too.”

She pointed to the scene carved beside those. “And here are all the kids growing up. Mike is Tall. Nicki is the same as me. Amanda...so tiny. Oh...and look at this darl. There is another path and it joins onto mine.”

She pointed down to a picture that was carved beside hers. “I bet you can't guess who that is,”

The Wizard was amazed at the likeness. “It looks a lot like me,” he said.

She nodded, smiling. “It is you darl,” she said. “It has been since we were fated to meet. If you go around to the other side of the table you'll see your life. But before you do that come down to this end of the table. See those happy faces? They are us.”

“Yes, the Wizard said, running his hand over the carved faces. “You can feel it,” he said. “They radiate the joy.”

“Yep,” she said, smiling widely. “Oh, and look. The kids are all grown up and have kids of their own.”

“Yes. Look at them all. Some of the children are yours, some are mine.”

“They look happy too,” Grinningbook said. “And here we are over here to. We have walking sticks. But look at our faces.”

David looked at the faces carved in the table for a long time. He finally turned, looking at Kris questioningly. “Why was it important for you to show me this incredible table?” he asked, looking into her eyes. “Why here, in your mind, while looking for a cup?”

Grinningbook leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We aren’t in my mind, darl,” she said. “We’re in yours.”

“Mine? How is that possible? I don’t understand.”

She touched his face. “You are at the end of your life,” she said. “Rage is killing you, just as she is slowly killing me.”

“Rage?” he said, searching his mind to give the word meaning.

“Right now you are lying in the dirt on a barren point overlooking the ocean while the thing that took my life out of time murders you.”

He remembered it all slowly. “I couldn’t free you,” he said, looking up. “How could you be here?”

She smiled widely. “I could always enter your mind, just as you could always enter mine. Rage doesn’t know this. Her guard is down, since she’s already won a dual you never had a chance of wining.”

David looked at the armor in beside the door. “Then it was hopeless from the beginning, just like before.”

Grinningbook shook her head. “It wasn’t darl,” she said. “It still isn’t. That’s why I showed you this. It is the melding of our lives. We’ve had our past. We are each other’s future. I’ve shown you this to let you know that there is a chance, that we do have a future. But not while Rage exists. You cannot beat Rage alone anymore than I could. Only together can we do that.”

“But if I’ve already lost, how can we do it at all?”

She kissed his cheek again and then backed away, beginning to fade. “Use that which I’ve already given you, my love.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Grinningbook stepped forward and placed the palms of both hands on his chest. He felt a familiar crackling as a charge of pure energy seemed to pass between them. He heard a voice in his head, a distant memory of something that happened that no longer existed anywhere else in the real world. But it was intensely real now. He closed his eyes.

“David I have something else to show you,” he hears the voice of the distant memory say. Then he sees himself floating in a sky of many colors. He feels her heart beating heavily in her chest. He smells her skin, so sweet it pulls at the very essence of his soul. It’s a pull that is so strong that he feels a part of him leaving, only to be replaced by a part of Kris's soul. And when it swells deep inside him he knows just what it is and why she has given it to him. “David” he hears her whisper. “I Love You, and this comes from the very core of my soul. But I couldn't just say it to you. I had to show you, had to make you feel it with your soul or it just wouldn't have been right. I'm trusting you with my heart. Take care of it for me.”

The Wizard opened his eyes. Grinningbook was still before him with her hands pressing against his chest. Her hands were bathed in the glow of bright blue energy.

“Do you understand, now?” she asked.

“I...don’t know,” he stammered.

“My power was the power of love,” she said. “That is what kept Rage away for all these years. That is what will send her away now.”

“But I don’t know what to do. I’ve thrown everything I have at her and nothing works.”

Grinningbook smiled patiently into his eyes. “Half of the soul residing in your body is that which I gave to you, just as half the soul in my body is yours. Use the part of you that is me.”

“I don’t know how.”

She stepped away from him lifting her palms in front of her. The blue energy crackling from it formed itself into a beautiful translucent sphere like a delicate soap bubble. It floated away from her hands, hovering in the air between them.

“Use the part of me that is you,” Grinningbooks said. “Thirteen can help. She is part of us both.”

The Wizard suddenly thought of their kitten. He had sent running for safety behind a thin tree. He felt his heart drop.

“Remember what you’ve always told me,” Grinningbook said.

“What?” David asked, looking between the blue bubble and her.

She smiled widely. “Love finds a way.”

Suddenly, before the Wizard could speak, the bubble burst and everything faded to black. There was a distinctive sound like a muted thump that repeated itself.

It was the first of the last two heartbeats of the Wizard’s life.

The Wizard was suddenly aware of the fact that he was no longer in the den with Grinningbook, but lying in the dust with Rage standing above him, howling with anger and pumping streams of pure concentrated hatred into his chest.

Slowly, his heart began to flex for the last time.

Rage redoubled her efforts, sensing the end.

Thud…thud.

And then it was over.

Rage stopped her assault and stepped back smiling. Slowly, she turned her head toward the tree at the edge of the cliff where Thirteen was hiding up on a branch. She raised both hands to fire a bolt of energy at the tree.

But something happened on the ground that caused her to stop and snap her attention back down to the inert form of the Wizard. His body suddenly began to glow with the shine of a bright blue energy that covered him like a shimmering blister. Rage fired another blast of bright red energy down at it, but it bounced harmlessly off the blue-energy shield and shot off into the sky. She backed up a pace, confused.

The Wizard’s body jerked compulsively as the shimmering blue energy danced along its length.

Then there was a new heartbeat. And then there was another followed by another and another.

His eyes sprang open and he sucked in a breath of air.

Rage howled and flung a red energy bubble at his. He waved his hands in front of him, and the thin layer of blue energy thickened and expanded into a sphere around him. Rage’s energy bubble burst against it, leaving a purple spot that was soon absorbed and then dissipated.

The Wizard climbed to his feet as the sphere completely surrounded him. He extended his hand, and a bolt of pale blue energy sprang out toward Rage. Caught off guard, the energy struck her and flung her backward into the sand. The Wizard turned toward the thin tree behind him and made a gesture in the air. Thirteen, who was covered by a thin blue sphere of her own, floated off the branch. Her sphere blended with the Wizard’s as she entered it. She came to rest on his shoulder.

Thirteen began to frantically rub her face against the Wizard’s.

“It’s okay,” The Wizard whispered, reaching up to pet her. “I’m fine.”

Across the Height from him, Rage had regained her footing. A sphere of burning red energy had begun to form around her. Seeing it, the Wizard willed his sphere to rise as he’d seen Grinningbook do many times. Rage’s sphere rose at the same time until both crackling spheres were hovering in the air above Poseidon’s Height opposing each other.

They remained that way – a seeming Mexican standoff – for a long time. Then, almost simultaneously, they shot forward toward each other, exploding in a bright flash of purple light.




Your friendly neighborhood Wizard