neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

Talea screamed and jumped backward. “Get out of my kitchen! Get out of my house!” The flailing broom knocked two of the heads senseless, while the other five fell to arguing among themselves.

Something landed on her right shoulder. As she reached up to rip it off, she saw a small fat man with a cherubic expression. He was composed entirely of layers of some resilient white substance that threatened to rub off on her blouse.

“Madame, I don’t know what eez going on heere, but I have work to do elsewhere and I reesent most heartily being sucked in with the rest of theeze undeesciplined and unrefined conjurations.”

“Don’t blame me. I didn’t conjure anything.” She grabbed the puffy white arm and wrenched. The limb promptly came off in her fingers. There was no blood, only a sort of thick black goo that began to ooze from the ruptured joints.

“Now look what you have done. I will meeze my next assignment.”

“Sorry.” She handed back the amputated limb.

“Merci.” With great dignity the creature jammed the arm back into the vacant shoulder socket. It hopped off her shoulder and bounced across the floor, disappearing into the otherworldly tumult.

The majority of phantasms were not nearly so polite. One tried to take a bite out of her left calf. Using the broom, ser left calf. Using the broom, s the heavy wooden kitchen table. Another leaped at her face, scrabbling at her eyes. All three of its own were missing. She caught it on the rounded end of the broomstick and jammed it hard against the cooler. The big box rattled. Have to get the coolant spell renewed, she thought absently.

That was the trouble with being married to a wizard. Or in her case, to a spellsinger. It was all very well and good to go toodling off all the time to save the world or close shattered interdimensional gates or defeat hordes of ravening invaders, oh yes. But try to get something fixed around the house? No way! They never had any time for domestic mundanities.

She picked up the skillet and flung it at another advancing horror. Utilizing all six of its black arms, it plucked the utensil cleanly from the air, studied it intently for a moment, then plunked it down on its already flattened skull, exhibiting an air of considerable satisfaction.

“By the Twelve Crinoline Veils of the Most Repentant Sinner,” she bawled irately, “I want you all out of here! Now!” Yanking open a drawer, she reached for the large skillet stored inside, only to draw back her hand at the sight of the four tiny imps cavorting within. They wore brightly striped scarves around their necks and nothing else as they skated on the fiat metal surface. Tiny wisps of steam rose from beneath their splayed feet.

“Do you mind?” one said, upset at the interruption of his private reverie.

“Do I mind? Get out of my drawer!” She spun around to swing at something that was chewing on the hem of her housedress, then thrust the end of the broomstick at the pan. The skating imps scattered wildly.

Suddenly she felt her feet going out from under her. The broom went flying as she landed on her front, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Looking down and backward, she saw four things that resembled a cross between miniature donkeys and salamanders. Their tack consisted of perfectly fashioned miniature harnesses hooked up to downsized block and tackle, which had been fastened to her ankles.

Seated atop a matching wagon at the back of the alien team was a tiny drover who was mostly long black beard and busy whip. He bellowed orders in a deep, unintelligible mumble as he and his team dragged the frantic Talea toward a gaping, ominous, and hitherto unsuspected cavity beneath the fruit bin. Conflagrant lights alternately flared and faded in me black depths.

She dug at the floor, yelling and screeching, while all around her wee monstrosities and diminutive horrors gibbered contentedly as they reduced her kitchen to rubble.

“That’s enough’.” she roared.

Rolling over, she leaned forward and kicked with both legs as hard as she could. The block and tackle snapped, and both drover and team went flying. Still mumbling and babbling to themselves, they vanished into that abiding black maw.

“My sword,” she muttered as she struggled to her feet. “Where’d I store that damn sword?”

Since marrying Jon-Tom she hadn’t had much occasion to make use of her old weapon. During holidays it was handy for making spectacularly short work of a big roast. Otherwise it slept in storage, her thieving and fighting days being far behind her. But she hadn’t forgotten how to use it.

Was it in with the cutlery? No, not enough room. Behind the stove? No, it would’ve stuck out there. She finally located it jammed unceremoniously in the back of the broom closet. Except for a light glaze of kitchen grease it was perfectly functional.

Hefting the familiar old grip in both hands, she turned in her housedress to confront the room full of clawing, cawing demons. Pots and dishes were scattered everywhere, food containers had been upturned and then contents dumped on the counters, while piquant liquids pooled on her painstakingly polished floor.

“Chaos repossess all of you, Spawn of Hell!” Swinging the sword in broad, powerful, horizontal arcs, she waded fearlessly into the babble.

Heads, limbs, and interesting other body parts went flying as blood of dissimilar colors spurted, mixing with the spilled honey and milk and household cleansers. She knew it was going to take a heavy, not to mention expensive, housecleaning spell to scrub away the carnage, but she was damned if she was going to clean up this mess manually. Jon-Tom was going to have to drop whatever he was involved with and do something about it.

Squealing and striking out with long, pointed arms, a giant blue spider rushed her on stiltlike legs. Skewering it neatly, she swung the sword and bashed its brains out against the baking counter. Green ichor and pink brains bubbled from the crushed chiton, getting all over the batch of sprinkle-topped cupcakes she’d made just the week before. At that sight her fury knew no bounds, and she laid about the kitchen with a will.

Demonic shapes struck at her, or scrambled to get out of her way, or sought escape in cabinets and drawers. Yet despite her successes, progress eluded her. Mocking her efforts, fresh furies materialized whenever another was destroyed. They kept coming at her: oozing up out of the floor, dropping down from the skylight, spiraling up out of the sinks—an endless procession of horrors that reinforced themselves even as she demolished their predecessors.

Gradually she found herself forced to retreat by the sheer weight of numbers. Backed up against the broom closet, her sword strokes inevitably grew shorter and weaker as her assailants pressed their attack.

She’d always envisioned herself perishing on some grand quest of Jon-Tom’s, or at worst while comfortably retired amongst the widows of the local Thieves and Cutpurses Rest Home. Not like this, not in her own kitchen, brought down by a conjuration she’d had no part in and couldn’t comprehend. What had happened to the carefully crafted home protection and insulation spell that usually shielded her sanctum from nefarious external influences? Admittedly it was primarily designed to vacuum and deodorize, but it should have restricted the access of demons, gargoyles, and their ilk as well. That it had failed so spectacularly suggested an even more powerful sorcery was at work.

Her hair tousled about her, housedress in tatters, she continued to cut and thrust with the sword. It was just like old times, except that her arms weren’t nearly as responsive as they used to be, her strokes not quite as economical of arc.

Just when she thought her trembling legs and arms were about to give out completely and that the fanged and taloned mob of necrotic intruders were going to take her down for the last time, there came the sound of a thump from beyond the kitchen doorway.