Paul Collins - Trouble Wizard

"I have you now!" Gilbon crowed triumphantly. He kept the stingray's course, caught a similar updraft, hedge-clipped the island then banked down emulating the stingray's descent.

And like the stingray, Gilbon crashed into a rock face.

Bonnie dispatched a ghoul and in a moment of lucidity, realized there was only one left.

Jute now confronted Omph the Horrible. The latter wiped his bloodied lips and smirked as he hefted a huge club. The latter he promptly dropped and fled into the dense scrub.

The three pirates charged forward but came to an abrupt halt when they heard Jackie scream a warning.

They whirled recklessly, now fully accustomed to their renewed strength, but in that moment, old aches and pains exploded in their bodies.

"Slowly," Bonnie cautioned. She indicated the far bank.

A lone horseman sat astride a magnificent black horse. The latter flared its nostrils and snorted. That single figure drove something like fear in the five as they struggled up the muddy bank.

Jute and Hyiat drew their swords. "Ho, Jute," Hyiat said with mock bravo. "A solitary foe to join in battle."

"We need our youth back, Winston-boy," Bonnie demanded. She knelt beside him. Then something

intangible flowed between them. The others stood back mesmerized by a crackling flame that formed two thirds of a circle.

Winston shook his head slowly. A frond of green light snuck out from their united fingertips and attached itself to the waning light surrounding Shantele. It sliced a hole in the oscillating sphere and the bubble split open like a sliced melon.

Unfamiliar with such power, Bonnie pulled back in fright. She looked skyward but apart from a few foreboding black clouds, it was empty.

"I'm bewitched!" she gasped. She pulled at an amulet and ripped it from around her neck. "That accursed piece of metal I won from you at two-up!" Bonnie accused Jute. She threw it to the ground and the mortals stepped back hurriedly.

At that moment Shantele burst from his prison. The opaque shell dispersed like so much mist before a wind.

"Master!" Winston cried and crawled groggily beneath the sorcerer's shoulder to lend support.

"Enough of that!" Shantele said, a little disconcerted. Then his eyes fastened on the shark-grey metal amulet that Bonnie had discarded.

"There’s evil afoot!" Bonnie warned. "We have no time for - "

Shantele gestured for silence. "Two pieces of a puzzle..." he mused. He looked at Winston's amulet.

Already he could feel the power emanating from the amulets.

"FATHER!" Jackie screamed and all bar Shantele looked up.

The horseman came forward then.

Jackie ran out to meet him. She flung herself at the man who hefted her up into the saddle and the pair of them clung to one another.

The sound of crashing foliage made them all spin about. Then Gilbon's huge frame lumbered into the clearing. "There you guys are," Gilbon said. "I say, Shanny, that wasn't half a good spell you concocted.

Any more where that came from?"

"So you survived, you old buzzard," Shantele said with restrained relief.

"Whatever happened, old bean?" Gilbon asked. "One minute the stingray wanted my blood, the next it wanted no part of it."

"The same went for us," Bonnie put in. "The last ghouls lost heart. The gods can drink their blood when next they sip the Beagle River."

"Well put, if ill advised," Shantele said quickly. "I should imagine the Guild could only maintain such an extensive drain on their power for so long. Then, one by one, members of the Guild collapsed through sheer exhaustion. Thus their power base collapsed."

Shantele ran a gnarled hand through his hair. "Be all that as it may, I'm yet to fathom the Guild's interest -

"

"Then let us be of assistance," Mollie said. She and Gran stepped forward.

"Good ladies!" Shantele said, delivering a brilliant recovery. "I should have known we had assistance in our little fray."

Mollie smiled thinly. "'Tis more the amulet segments that gave assistance," Mollie said. "When the two parts become whole, their power is most potent. When the third part is found, you shall have within your power all that was Lord Cabal's."

"Cabal, history's most potent sorceror..." Shantele managed to look perplexed. "Indeed?" He pocketed Bonnie's amulet within the dark folds of his cloak. "Then there is much to be done! It's time Winston and I took our leave. Come on lad," he said, beckoning the apprentice.

"Take care," Mollie said ominously.

The wizard and his apprentice gathered up the mound of magic-impregnated wool from their carpet and hurried off into the scrub.

Mollie and Gran seemingly vanished within a heart beat. One minute they were standing there, the next, both waved their black velvet cloaks and seemed to blend into nothingness.

"I say," Gilbon said.

"You've said enough," Jute growled. "Where are we, you fat lizard?"

"How come we're here?" Hyiat wondered.

"It's good to see you've become your old selves," Bonnie said. "It's off to the Barrenlands we be! But first - where's the treasure?"

"Aye," Jute said. He withdrew his sword and advanced on Gilbon. "We've delivered our end of the bargain. Now where's your end?"

"Here," Jackie said from behind them.

They turned slowly. Jackie threw each of them a leather purse. Her father stood beside her. "It's enough recompense for finding a girl's father," he said.

The pirates weighed the purses in their hands and the odds against bargaining for more.

"It's suitable," Bonnie agreed. "Hyiat-boy?"

"It'll be enough to re-deck Whispering Ghost," Hyiat asserted.

"And enough to take us far away from witches, wizards and dragons," Jute put in. "This accursed forest harbors all three in vast quantities!

"I say," Gilbon began, but the pirates sheathed their swords and daring him to say another word, took their leave.

Jackie went over to Gilbon then and flung her arms partially around his stomach. "Come adventuring with us," she pleaded, looking up into the dragon's watery eyes.

"Not likely!" Gilbon said. "I'm retired I tell you. I crave the melodic whisperings of the singsong tree, the rippling waters of mountain spring water - all that sort of stuff.

"And long may you enjoy your retirement," Jackie's father said. "Come on, Jackie. We'll need to make camp for the night. And it's best that we put as much distance between us and this place as possible."

Gilbon watched Jackie and her father blend with the scrub. He sat there a while contemplating his earlier aerial aerobics and the temptation to fly home came upon him.

Nonetheless, his withered wings had not the power to get him airborne, so he began his weary journey home on foot.

Elsewhere, the Wizards' Guild met in solemn conference.

The damnable wizard Shantele had somehow routed their army of ghouls and obtained the second segment to the world's most powerful amulet.

Storm clouds gathered over the wizard's mountain residence and spoke in thunderous tones.

Shantele pensively tugged at his beard. To Winston he said, "The clouds reflect my various moods, you know."

To which Winston said nothing of import; for it is rumored he was miles away, seeking the third segment of Lord Cabal's amulet...