Upon touching the staff, Carl felt something he had never experienced before – a sense of energy, elation, power. He was a small boy, even for his age, so he had never felt more powerful than anyone before. It was a nice feeling. Even with the horror he had just experienced, he had to admit that the staff felt good in his hands, felt right. This must have been what those three men felt; yet even with so much power, and the three of them working together, Orndorf slaughtered them with ease.
The wizard was either smarter than he let on or had immense power that he was unable to control. Carl wasn’t fond of either option. He eyed Orndorf suspiciously.
“Oh! I think it likes you!” the wizard said, nodding at the white staff. “Have you ever done any magic before?”
“No,” Carl said curtly, not keen to make conversation. His mind was reeling from the events of the past few minutes. It was difficult to think straight.
“Well, I think it’s clear. You’re a wizard, Carl. Go on, give it a swirl.”
Carl lifted the staff into the air with two hands and moved it in a circular motion. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but the staff responded with a green ball of energy that slowly built up the more he waved the staff, like he was catching energy straight out of the air. He could feel the power travelling through the staff and into his blood – or was it travelling through his blood and into the staff? It was impossible to tell. The staff was an extension of his body, and a conduit to the natural power that had laid dormant inside of him.
He flicked the staff and the ball flew off the end and into the table, shattering it to pieces.
“Woah,” Carl said.
“Woah indeed,” Orndorf replied. “That was quite a fling you just flung. I don’t think we’ll have any problems making it to the liver now!” He patted Carl on the back.
Maybe it was an accident, Carl thought. Maybe the wizard just did what he had to do. After all, if he meant to do me harm, why would he have given me a weapon?
“Let’s get out of here. I hate the sight of corpses,” Orndorf said. “It’s still a long way to the liver, but we can pass the time practicing spells. What fun!”
He stepped over the mangled corpses, lifting up his gown to avoid dipping the ends in blood. Carl’s legs weren’t quite as long, so he had to use one of the dead wizard’s backs like a stepping stone. He let out one last sigh when Carl put his weight on him.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Orndorf had already left the chamber, and Carl was nearly out himself, when he noticed that the wall to the right of him was moving, pulling itself apart, much like the stretch mark message on Father’s skin. Again, it was only three words.
KILL HIM NOW
He thought about it, about flinging an energy ball at Orndorf while his back was turned, but he didn’t do it. After what he saw him do to those three trained, experienced wizards, he wasn’t sure if he even could. He played the dumb old man, sure, but fear pulled at Carl’s mind, telling him the risk was too great, and that Orndorf would probably kill him if he tried anything. And besides, he didn’t want to be alone in this dark, smelly world, and he didn’t want to ruin what little chance he currently had to set things right. He wanted to bury his father, not be buried inside of his father. So he ignored the message and followed the wizard back into the open world.
<hr>
Orndorf’s first lesson in magic was to show Carl how to conjure his own orb of light. It turned out that, when you had a magic staff to channel the magic in your blood, all you really had to do was ask, and whatever light was accessible would follow you around and do what you asked, as long as you asked nicely. Carl did as Orndorf said — firmly planted his staff in the ground, thought hard about how much he would love a ball of light to follow him around, and a ball appeared over his head, eager to please the young wizard. And pleased he was. It had no face, no mannerisms, no personality traits of any kind, really, but Carl loved the little white ball floating mindlessly over his head. Not only was it nice to be able to see; it made him feel more independent, like he didn’t need Orndorf quite as much. Orndorf seemed just as relieved about this development as Carl.
“Pretty soon, you’ll be the one defending me!” the old wizard laughed as they walked through a patch of tripe that laid flat along the outside of the intestines. He could fit both of his feet in each amorphous divet, and had to bring his feet up nearly to his knees to step over the folded organ tissue. Carl thought back to his anatomy class, and the time he went to a Mexican restaurant, and realized that something wasn’t quite right.
“Isn’t this stomach lining?” Carl asked. “What’s it doing here?”
“Hmm, good question,” Orndorf replied. “Perhaps the rogue spell is causing parts of Father to rearrange, or perhaps someone grabbed it and left it here.”
It was at least a half-mile stretch of stomach lining, and it was firmly embedded into the ground. Carl accepted the first notion as the more reasonable one.
“If that’s the case, what if the liver’s not where it’s supposed to be? Or what if it moves before we get there?”
Orndorf chuckled. “Oh, dear boy, you have much to learn about magic, still. I’m not using a map of the human body to guide us to the liver. The magic’s told me where to go. And if the location changes, the magic will tell me that too. So don’t worry about all that. Let’s just worry about getting away from this terrible terrain. My knees are positively throbbing with ache.”
The end of the stomach lining brought with it a steep, dark drop that neither of the two wizards were keen to experience. They looked down and saw nothing. They looked outwards, into the distance, and Carl saw nothing, but Orndorf gasped and nearly jumped up and down with joy before his knees reminded him of his age.
“What? What?!” Carl asked.
Orndorf smiled and pointed down into the distant darkness. “Look! Down there! A village!”