Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📗

house, down the warm, oak-paneled hallway, and out into one of the spacious living areas. It was a huge room, lit with a couple of peryton antler chandeliers and liberally decorated with comfortable mismatched sofas. There was a log fire doing a damn good, festive job of roaring away in the massive hearth, alternating between burning with red, green, and orange flames.

Around the shelves and sitting on tables and the backs of sofas were small elf-like creatures, which at first glance might have been mistaken as being ornaments. On closer inspection, these little guys were alive and kicking—literally kicking in many instances, as the only thing the Yuletide race liked better than drinking eggnog from thimbles was kicking the snot out of one another once they’d drunk their fill.

All this was peripheral, though. The main feature of the giant, festive sitting room was the group of people gathered in it.

Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock, Aunt Ruth, Reginald, Mort, and Igor were there, naturally, as were Idman and Barry. Idman, for a dude who continually proclaimed what an excrescence he found the poltergeist, sure did spend a lot of time chatting to the ghostly keeper of our fraternity dungeon. I kept my thoughts to myself, but I suspected that the former High Warden of the Eldritch Prison had taken a bit of a shine to the poltergeist. I imagined that Barry’s long memory held a lot of interest for a man of Idman Thunderstone’s intelligence.

More notably, next to Idman, occupying high-backed armchairs near the fire, were none other than the beautiful figures of Alura, Cecilia, and Janet. I opened my mouth to express my surprise, when I was stopped by a cork that flew across the room and hit me in the side of the dome.

“Where the hell have you been, friend?” Rick boomed from where he was sitting in an opposite corner with Damien and Nigel.

“Where the hell have I been?” I said, trying to not act too surprised at seeing all my pals gathered here. “I think the better question would be, what the hell are you three assholes doing here? Can’t a guy enjoy Yuletide in peace?”

I went and sat down with my fraternity brothers and shook hands with all of them. Call me Sally and fuck me with a fruit fork, but it was good to see them.

“So,” Damien said, “what kept you? Nigel and I must have arrived just after you and Mallory and Leah left. We got here first thing and you’ve been gone all day. Some chubby little werewolf cowboy told us that you’d gone to the Castle of Ascendance on a couple of Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock’s prized pegasi, or some such shit. What were you three doing?”

I sank a little deeper into the comfort of my armchair and gratefully accepted the goblet of ale that Nigel Windmaker handed to me.

“Cheers, Nigel,” I said. “And lads, please excuse me, but I really cannot be assed to get into what we just went through. Maybe, I’ll tell you tomorrow. Right now, though, I just want to chill and hear what the hell you guys are doing here.”

“Well, somehow, I got the feeling that you would be needing my services sooner rather than later,” Rick rumbled, slurping from a huge tankard that some knowing Chaosbane had acquired for the big Earth Elemental. “I spent a bit of quality time with my father in the forge—there is no better or more intense time than sharing the cramped confines of a forge with a tribal chief, especially when he also happens to be your old man.”

The Earth Elemental’s amiable green eyes glinted merrily.

“You and your dad are both big men with big personalities,” Damien hedged. “Was three days all it took for the two of you to want to murder one another?”

We laughed at this, but Rick remained diplomatically silent, only the twinkle in his eye telling us how close to the market Damien had hit.

“So, you’re ready to bust into my mother’s crystal?” I asked, taking a sip of ale. It tasted like the ambrosia of the gods. “The forge is hot and ready to rock, metaphorically speaking?”

Rick inclined his head. “Ready when you are, friend,” he rumbled.

I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind if I had a few more days of relative peace before we start kicking the hornet’s nest around like a soccer ball again.”

Rick grinned, showing almost every one of his tombstone teeth. He raised his tankard in salute.

“And what about you guys?” I asked, turning my attention to Nigel and Damien, who were lolling on a couch, looking as relaxed and full of good cheer as I was feeling. “How was Earth?”

Nigel leaned forward. He was bright-eyed and had the dangerous look about him that he sometimes got. It was the look that informed his conversational partner that he was about to start giving an account of such detail and length that the only way they were going to be able to stop him talking was with a heavy, blunt instrument.

“Justin,” he breathed, after he had wet his whistle with a slug of delicious smelling apricot brandy, “there is so much that you neglected to tell me of your home-world. So many wonders!”

I chanced a glance at Damien. The L.A. native was obviously trying hard not to laugh.

“Wonders like what?” I asked.

Nigel began patting his pockets feverishly, while Damien carried on getting slowly redder and redder with suppressed mirth.

Finally, Nigel extricated a small, wrapped package from the depths of his jacket and held it up for me to look at.

It was a burger. A bog-standard dirty cheeseburger from everyone’s favorite global fast-food corporation.

I looked at it. Looked at Nigel. Looked back at the ninety-nine percent heart attack he held in his hands.

“Uhh, what’re you showing me here, Nigel?”