Gaius Darkspell and The Duel of Fates - Part 1

Gaius Darkspell stood in the shadow of the World’s End and looked up. The sky was painted with the ominous hues of a bruise, like one might get when walking into a coffee table when one was thinking about spells instead of paying attention to where one was going. Gaius stooped and rubbed his thigh and considered looking through the catalog again for one of those large ottomans instead. A plush one with soft corners.

“Here we are,” he said to no one in particular, mostly because no one in particular was around. “It ends here.” Gaius sighed, a long, deep breath that resulted in a hacking cough. He caught the edge of his billowing sleeve in his hand and pressed it to his mouth. He’d given his hanky to Ilium before she’d fallen, and he stared into the nothingness of the side of the mountain and remembered her smile, her beauty, the way her eyes sparkled and the left one in particular seemed to have a mind of its own and loll to the side now and again as if she was looking at two people at the same time.

“For Ilium,” he muttered, gathering his robes about him and adjusting his pack. “For Lucius and Axor and Bane.” The words hung in the air as if they could summon their images, bring them back, return them to him. “For all of you who went before, I shall end this here and now,” he declared in a strong, clear voice and took his first step up the mountain.

Gaius Darkspell had spent his life in preparation for this moment. He was, after all, the greatest wizard known in the Four Continents, a child prodigy, nay, the “Chosen One”, some said. He smiled to himself, thinking back to all the trials and tribulations that had brought him to this moment. The pain, the sorrow, that moment with the coffee table, the time he’d tripped over his robes while trying to carry too many tankards of ale and spilled mostly all of them down the front of Ilium’s blouse. She’d not been pleased, but he’d been quick, world’s greatest wizard that he was, with a round of apologies and a drying spell. Lickety split, her blouse was dry, only he’d forgotten that cotton shrinks in high heat, and the ample bosom she had was now decidedly more ample, if her blouse was any indication. He’d caught two buttons across his cheek as the cotton snapped and her shirt flapped open with the dramatic flair of a stage curtain.

Thus began their torrid love affair and a constant reminder that he wasn’t allowed to do the laundry.

Gaius paused, leaning on an outcropping of rock, and glanced up at the bluing sky. It was still morning, but the mountain was high, and he had to make the crest at the appointed time. Everything depended on it. The fate, as it were, of the world. He shoved another sliver of dried pork into his mouth, gnawing on the salty flesh from the packet he’d obtained earlier in the village’s SixTwelve and pondering the nature of the climb. Was it not his fate, as it were, to be there? He’d trained his whole life for this day, this moment, when he would fight the greatest battle known across the Four Continents.

Fate, as it were, had not argued one bit with him. In fact, he recalled, feeling a little unsteady and wishing he’d gotten a cappuccino to go with his jerky, they’d had occasion to chat at least twice. The last time was at a small gathering of particularly important people, which, to the uninitiated, was one step up from very important people. Particularly Important People had a special handshake, a passkey to the best jazz lounges on the continent and raven-delivered  invitations to the most exclusive parties. Such high level hobnobbery couldn’t be left to just anyone, and Gaius, after slaying the Beast of Brexiton, defeating the Scoundrel of the Swamplands and the dreaded Vermillion Vermin King himself, had gotten what he believed was a fated, as it were, invitation and had RSVP’d right off.

Luckily it was a plus-1 so Illium could go. At least that’s what he thought up until they arrived and he’d learned that she was already a member and he was just late to the party, so to speak.

Fate, as it were, had worn a little off-the-shoulder thing that Ilium had disliked right away. After a couple of terse exchanges, the Love of His Life had excused herself to the call for shots by Axor and Bane, who hadn’t taken three steps away from the bar all night. And thus, Gaius was alone with Fate, as it were, herself. She was judgy, he judged right off, his keen mind latching onto the sneer that marred her otherwise flawless face as she watched Ilium sashay away.

“The moment looms,” she said, her voice like gravel through a coffee grinder, pulling Gaius’ head around and his eyes from an ass he could never stop staring at. “You must let the others go, Gaius.” She nodded, indicating the three heroes and maybe the bartender, who looked like an extra from an old sitcom.

“How pray tell can I do that?” he said, using the kinds of words one would use when talking to Fate, as it were.

“You must find a way.” She placed an icy hand on his arm. “If you do not, I will.”

The chill of her palm was nothing compared to the cold shiver that crawled up the wizard’s spine as the weight of those words hit him. The urge to look back, to see them there — the Love of His Life and his two best friends, to make sure they were still there and not suddenly gone was almost overpowering, and it would have overpowered him if he hadn’t been the greatest wizard who ever lived. What she said, it felt like the moment was here, now, even though he knew better. “But…”

“It is fated.” As it were…

“The Tournament of Champions. The final battle.”

“They will fall, one-by-one. You already know this, Gaius. You don’t need to hear it from my lips.”

“But, you’re Fate, as it were. Can you not change the nature of this moment? Of the things that may come? You are the embodiment of the future, are you not? Just change your mind.” He was scrambling now, looking for an answer, but she just shook her head, her black eyes burning into him. “I’ll do anything. Give you what you want. Money? I’ve got a little 401k with the wizard’s guild. It’s not much because I’m cautious and I only invest in bonds.” She frowned. “A gold tooth. I’ve got a gold tooth. I can pop it out and just give it to you. It’s like my mad cash secret stash in case I get in trouble with bandits.” He reached up, his arm slipping from her icy grasp, and pushed his lips back with his fingers. “S’right thur. Thee?”

Fate, as it were, raised her hand. “I have spoken, Gaius. You must make peace with this, and you must carry forward. The fate, as it were, of the world is in your hands.”

Gaius took a deep breath and nodded. He nodded again as he stared up at the sky. The sun was peeking over the summit now, glaring down at him like a big yellow eye, as if the whole world was looking through that lens as a lone wizard trudged, stumbled and occasionally slid in a manner most undignified for the weight of this moment up the tallest peak of the greatest mountain range on the Four Continents, known to those who bothered with such things as The World’s End. 

This destination, he’d always known, would be his end. Not that Fate, as it were, said as much, but after watching his friends fall one-by-one, and ultimately seeing his Most Precious Ilium of the Pert Bottom — she hated when he called her that and threatened on numerous occasions to chop his dick off with one of her throwing axes if he kept it up — fall in the great tournament to the very creature that awaited him, he may indeed be vanquished. The World’s End was more than a mountain, more than a summit that no mortal man had ever survived. It was a place of legend, a massive, extinct volcano that had the dubious honor of being the nesting place of the deadliest dragon ever to belch fire and ruin property values over the Four Continents.

Valkath the Inferno had been a terror since before Gaius was born. A dragon of extraordinary size, as ancient as the foothills of this mountain, and as dangerous as, er, even more dangerous than Gaius’ favorite spell when he was feeling particularly nasty — Death by a Thousand Papercuts. 

The paper cuts didn’t sound like much until the numbers really started adding up and/or when they started happening in the private areas of the body. Talk about shrieking. Every time Gaius remembered using that spell to defeat the Witch and Warlock of Winterwood, he secretly regretted it all while bragging and laughing and calling for more shots. Frankly, it gave him the willies, and he’d wished he’d never come up with the nightmarish incantation. That he’d been trying to create a spell for popping pimples didn’t make it better.

Valkath, however, was much much worse, and with each step closer to the top, Gaius kept envisioning the death and destruction that the terrible lizard had inflicted on the world. Most of the villages in Baldur abandoned after the hungry beast descended on the pastoral paradise and proceeded to eat all their pigs and sheep, leaving their skeletons standing as if some time in the night their skin and guts had simply run off without them. In Kimera, where the rivers ran fast and the fisherfolk spent their days lazing on the water tending lines, the adults had all come home one day, their nets full of the daily catch, and found that Valkath had spent the afternoon with the village children teaching them to smoke and blow pipe rings. Two of the children had even been discovered to have tattoos -- of a dragon, of course.

Valkath’s terrors knew no bounds, leaving the people of the Four Continents in fear of where he would strike next, descending like a flaming bullet from his smokey peak on some unsuspecting village to wreak quasi-havoc. From cow tipping on a lazy Sunday afternoon, to overcooking the roast beast at the family picnic, his evil was unsurpassed. Sure, Gaius farted in church, on the rare occasion he went into a church, which was usually because it was the only place he could find a public bathroom and a steady supply of wine, but Valkath binge-watched shows then showed up a town hall’s and told everyone how the show ended without even a “spoiler alert” announcement in case anyone had intended to watch the series.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, he liked to sneak around at night and deposit massive quantities of treasure in people’s outhouses. Sure, they were rich, but suddenly there was nowhere to poop.

It just wouldn’t do, and so, Gaius Darkspell, the greatest living wizard, scrambled up the highest mountain in existence to face the most dangerous, devious and diabolical foe that he’d ever faced. It was his duty to the people of the Four Continents, his duty to his friends and his love, Ilium, and as he’d come to accept, it was simply his fate, as it were. The dragon, Valkath the Inferno, had to be stopped once and for all.