A Wizard's Best Friend: Part 2/2

In which Eddy does his best to kick a lich's butt.

Part 1: http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/work.php?id=97860

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There was a part of me that just wished to hunker down beneath the blanket and wait for the lich to have its fill. Maybe then it would go away, leave me alone. In spite of this, I found myself doing the exact opposite. I'd like to say it was my inner heroism that made me cast the blanket aside, rise to my feet and rush to Trent's rescue. In truth, I'd be evicted from my house if I didn't get some money together by tomorrow. Without Trent, I wouldn't get paid for this job. To hell and back again with that.
 

I saw the lich. Maybe I should have just stayed in hell while I was at it. A lich is Casper gone wrong. Instead of white and clean, it's black and ragged. No, a lich isn't black. It's darkness itself, cowled up and ready to devour your soul. Did I mention the claws? Probably not; they were pretty hard to see as they were embedded into Trent's bloody chest.
 

”Set that man down, creature of the night! This duel is between the two of us!”
 

Why are you looking at me funnily? Let a wizard have his drama.
 

The lich looked up from its prey to examine the disheveled man wearing sandals, khakis and a rumpled collar shirt, clutching a blanket and a folding knife. It made a hacking, choking sound. It took a while for me to realize it was laughing as it unfurled its claws from Trent's flesh. Before I got a grip on it, my wizard's pride picked me up by the scruff of my neck and flung me at the lich, howling like a dying demon.
 

It swung a clawed appendage at me, the air blurring where my vision couldn't keep up. Thankfully I'd fought a lich before and knew to duck on instinct. I rolled over my shoulder and stuck the landing, sandal slamming onto the floor and centering my weight as I unfurled with savage speed. My pen-knife was a flash of silver as it shot through the space between us and into the folds of the lich's cloak. It gave an un-godly scream, forcing me to cover my ears and screw my eyes shut against the tangible waves of sound. It buffeted me like a hail of assaults, driving me to my knees.
 

Sheer reflex kept my head on my shoulders as I dropped to my stomach and rolled away, hands still clutching my ears. A claw raked my back, scoring a line of acid. I staggered onto my feet, bloody hand slipping on the hilt of my knife. My ears rang like a half-wits improvisation of 'You Raise Me Up' and the audio of the world had gone frighteningly low. It had to have a weakness. These things always have one. It was just a matter of –
 

I hit the wall solidly, the air exploding out of my lungs. My back burst into flames, burning stripes of agony tracing the lines of my ribs. The knife slid out of my nerveless fingers and I crumpled onto the floor, body alternately going rigid and flaccid as pain swept through my nerves with jagged pulses.
 

”Sssuch puny wizard. It hasss no power.”
 

The hammer of the lich's inhuman voice drove hard against the anvil of my agony and I screamed.
 

”It wavesss around big wordsss and hopesss for a miracle. It disssgussstsss me,” the lich spat the unwieldy word with distaste, venom seeping into the marrow of the grounded bones in its voice. ”Now it diesss. Goodbye, ssspellsssinger.”
 

I opened my mouth to speak, but succeeded in only blowing a bubble from bloody froth. I laughed then. The maniacal laugh of someone so far from reality that it seems insane to be sane. The lich stopped short. If it would have eyes, they would have been narrowed and suspicious. It was still in the way only something non-human could be still. I laughed until I started coughing, then laughed through the coughing, nearly choking myself on my own blood.
 

”You know nothing,” I wheezed out, ”- nothing of power.”
 

My fingers closed around my pen-knife. Groggy from my injuries, I hauled myself to my feet. I swayed violently and decided to lean on the wall. I spat out a pink froth, wincing at the looseness of my tooth. The thing about the things that go bump in the night is that they're highly curious. They go bump because the want to know what an object is. Knowing this, it was hardly surprising to me that the lich floated motionlessly in front of me, claws posed in a clutching position, mere inches from my throat.
 

I focused my will into something sharp and tangible and suddenly the lich wasn't as motionless anymore. It recoiled from me, much like a child from a bonfire, a spear of fire sprouting from its stomach. I smiled a wicked, bloody smile. And then it slapped me, much like a child slapping a fly, and I collapsed onto to the hard, sticky floor.
 

”You amussse me, mortal.”
 

My head lolled limply in the lich's hand as it grabbed my hair. The fire in the lich's abdomen grumbled out as my focus swayed. A low moaning vibrated through the building and I felt a queasiness through the fuzziness of my head. Something flickering and transparently blue, if that makes any sense, was oozing out of me. A frantic part of me was shrilly screaming in a corner of my brain, but the fuzziness blocked it out. My soul. It seemed to yell. It's eating my soul.
 

An emptiness that began in my stomach crept through me, stripping away my pain and my worries. A slow smile spread over my face like honey on a cracker. Slowly oozing. Simply being. The troublesome colors faded from my vision, first the reds, then the greens. I felt happy. Truly happy. I felt light. And flickery. And very, very fleeting.
 

A hollow thud shattered my world and the color crashed in. I cried out in pain and clutched at my eyes, trying to squeeze away the pain. Reality slammed back into me one crippling punch at a time. I hunkered down and waited for the pain to subside, uselessly cradling my shattered ribs.
 

”Are you okay? Huh, Eddy?”
 

I waved away the angrily buzzing words, swatted vaguely.
 

”Eddy! Wake up, you sodden bastard.”
 

Good old oxygen rushed back into my veins and snapped me out of my coma. I hacked up blood and spit, slowly dribbling down my chin. I idly wiped at it with my sleeve as I stared up into a pair of brown eyes.
 

”What? What happened?” My eyes went to to his torn chest. ”Does it hurt?” I asked, immediately regretting the stupid question.
 

”Not as much I think it should. Which is sort of scary.” Trent managed a weak grin. ”As to what happened, I hit the bastard. With this.” He hefted something metallic and round.
 

I burst out laughing, the retching motion pulling at my wounds with horny fingers. It hurt like hell, but I couldn't stop myself. Tears mingled with joy as I sputtered out, ”You knocked out a lich. With a frying pan. Good gods man.”
 

His grin vanished. ”Knocked out? You mean it's not dead?”
 

I spat out a last amused giggle and looked at him oddly. ”Of course not.”
 

”But that means... It means that it will still kill us. Oh God.” Trent slumped back, eyes wide in horror as he stared at the motionless heap of darkness.
 

”That's where you're wrong, good sir. Help me up will you? Argh,” I hissed as my fractured ribs grated against one another. ”Hurts like a sonnuva whore. You're missing the fact that we've still got the blanket. Help me up, damn you.”
 

Eyes never leaving the downed lich, Trent supported me as I ground my way up with much the same enthusiasm as I would have when grinding my own bones. I closed my eyes against the pain, holding a childish fancy that if I couldn't see it, it would go away.
 

You're a wizard, dammit, I told myself sternly, act the part.
 

”Hand me the blanket,” I told Trent as I forced my clammy eyelids open.
 

”I ain't going under that no more.”
 

”You don't have to, just give me the blanket.”
 

”Give your word, dammit. I am not going under that blanket to wait for some miracle.”
 

”You have my word.”
 

”Your word as a -,” He paused, searching for word, then nodded. ”Your word as a songsinger.”
 

I suppressed a laugh. The sound that left could have been a grunt. ”Sure,” I managed.
 

Eyes still suspicious, Trent brought me the blanket. I ran over it quickly, expelling a held breath as I discovered it bore no holes. Now we could fight. You know what they say, a blanket is a wizard's best friend.
 

”Now to vanquish the night walker!” I said in my best, booming wizard voice. I turned on my heel empirically and hefted the blanket. I noticed for the first time that it had a curiously intricate design weaved out of flowers and suns with smiling faces. Hate to ruin such a nice blanket, but sometimes beauty must die for success to be reached.
 

Except. When I lowered my blanket and looked down on the lich, it wasn't there. There was no patch of darkness on the floor. I froze, puzzled. Why wasn't I already dead? I swung around, understanding sparking in my head. There was only one option.
 

”Trent!”
 

The lich laughed a joyful laugh and let the limp body of my employer fall to the ground. It turned its gaze on me, a tangible feeling of tension flickering somewhere in me. Run, the feeling said, run and whatever you do, don't look back.
 

”I'm a wizard dammit,” I said to myself. ”I didn't study for fifteen years for nothing. Damn it all. Come at me.” I met the lich's unseen gaze, letting the flames of my frustration lick my wounds. ”Come at me, lich. Come taste the wrath of an underpaid employee.”
 

It swept towards me. I laughed a single, hacking note and imbued all of my will into my right leg. I leaned back and rested out my foot, much like you'd stop a toy car your sibling was trying to hit you with. The lich slammed into the sole of my sandal with the backing force of a speeding truck. Its headlong dash stopped dead, and it fell on its ass. Metaphorically speaking. No ass, you see. Also, it slammed onto the floor hard enough to shatter its, ah, darkness.
 

I sprang on top of it, the blanket flapping as I bore down on the lich. It hissed and raked at me with its claws but I merely tucked my chin, accepting the funnels of blood that sprung from my face. A lich's weakness is its strength. They're mighty fast and can paralyze you, but they're not much in physical brawn. I had not trouble holding the squirming thing down.
 

With what I hoped was infuriating calmness, I tucked the blanket under the lich a corner at a time. Grasping my intentions, it grew desperate. It pleaded with me, it cajoled me. It laughed at me, it spat at me, it even spoke a poem for me. It was a nice poem, too. Methodically, I blocked its final, desperate slash and forced its clawed appendage under the blanket, tucking in the final corner.
 

I stood up and grimly surveyed my handiwork. It was a prison, after a fashion. It couldn't get out on its own, but if someone so much as stepped on the blanket... Well, then things would get hairy again. Only one choice, then. I retrieved my silver-inlaid pocket-knife and knelt before the blanket.
 

”Let me sing you a song,” I said, forcing will into my words.
 

I sang then. It was a sad song. It wept and shivered and flayed open its heart. It sang of places forgotten, of people deceased. It asked for forgiveness, but expected none. There was an odd, shimmering quality to it; it swept through the dark room and hung like a curtain, awaiting the call to close in finality. It was a song of power. A song of magic.
 

I nodded then, as the final note shattered and fell in time to the flashing blade of my knife. The curtains acknowledged their cue and swept closed as I buried the knife to the hilt in the blanket. In the darkness that ensued, I felt a flickering shiver beneath my hand. Then a stillness, one that not even monsters are capable of. No, this third stillness was something more ancient. It stuck to my throat and I cried then, the aches of my body heaving in time to my sobs.

***

I expelled a weary breath. It isn't easy work coaxing a soul back into its body. People seem to have this odd attachment to unhindered freedom.
 

”Mr. Trent? You in there?”
 

An angry swat in my general direction. ”Of course I'm in here, idiot. This is me you're talking to. Freaking wizards in their freaking sandals. Did you vanquish the Boogieman?”
 

Ah. His mind had recoiled. Maybe that was for the better. Just maybe, Trent wouldn't need this kind of knowledge ever again. Here's to hoping. I let the comment about my sandals pass. I felt proud. Sandals are awesome and don't deserve any of the shunning they get.
 

”Yes, yes I have.”
 

”You look like hell.” He cocked his head slyly. ”Beat yourself up or something to get more money out of me? It ain't gonna work, you know.”
 

I sighed. I didn't get into the business for it, but some gratitude would be nice for a change. ”I just encountered a couple of obstacles that needed overcoming with a couple of scratches.” I put on my most mysterious smile, largely enhanced by the bloody trails the lich's claws had left upon my face. ”Now, about my payment?”
 

Mr. Trent took an involuntary step back. It was small, but it gave me the incentive to leave the scars on my face instead of closing them. ”Ah, yes.”
 

As Trent dug in his pockets for the appropriate sum, I let my eyes wander. There was something magical about the air tonight. It smelled fresh. It smelled like life itself. There's something about near-death experiences that make you stand up and look around. Without sorrow, there is no joy. Ying and yang. That's the way the world spins. An endless cycle of black and white, spun so fast it all seems grey.
 

I walked away, waving a sad farewell to Mr. Trent, my payment tucked away in the inner pocket of my coat. Its weight, though largely nonexistent, felt reassuring. Now, you might be wondering how much I got payed for killing an evil Casper and restoring the soul of a middle-aged man, all in one night, dressed as I was, armed as I was. Well.
 

A damn sight short of what I should have, that's for bloody sure, but at least I'd still have a roof over my head next week.
 

The name's Eddy Hedge. Wizard. Fair, flexible rates. So, if you ever need a spook vanquished – or happen to be a beautiful woman who believes she is wearing too many layers of clothes – just give me a ring. I'll get it sorted.
 

Just one rule.
 

You can't complain about the sandals.


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