Dirk Destroyer Part 40 Chapter 21

Things are moving towards a conclusion in Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. May I point out that unlike James Patterson, I have not employed a hard-working patsy to do my writing for me. That may be because no self-respecting patsy (if there is such a thing,) would work for a novelist that makes considerably less than your average drone for each entirely original, non-James Patterson-inspired story he writes.

Full disclosure: I may have used a few (26 to be exact,) letters that I have seen in the one eighth of a James Patterson novel I’ve read (before becoming too depressed to continue.)

Maybe a few numbers as well.

Chapter 21

There Shall Be Showers of Fish Sticks

Swampy was the first member of the party I found, or more likely, Swampy found me. He landed on my shoulder and defecated. I didn’t mind, I just focused the feces to fall to off my shirt and onto the ground. It was a handy skill to have with Swampy around.

“Hungry,” said Swampy. “Need a fish stick?”

“A fish stick?” I had no idea where Swampy had run into fish sticks before. Maybe they had them at the ministry. I walked over to the stream that Tease had reshaped to create his shower. There were fish swimming at the base of Tease’s manufactured waterfall, probably trying to figure out how to get back upstream.

“There are your fish, Swampy. They couldn’t be much easier to catch.”

Swampy hopped off my shoulder and was about to hunt when his head turned suddenly. “Fish stick,” he croaked, and flew off.

Even after all this time Swampy did stuff that made no sense to me.

I continued my search for Ono, and as I entered a clearing, I saw her sitting with Mage-e-not. Ono had a stick levitated in the air, and Mage-e-not was concentrating on it. Half his head was phasing in and out of visibility.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

The stick poked Mage-e-not in the nose, then spun off into the bushes. “Oh no,” said Ono, “poke and pick.”

Mage-e-not rubbed his nose. “What we’re doing,” he said to me, “is trying to get some food.”

“I’ll go make some algae bars,” I offered.

“Real food,” said Mage-e-not.

“From a stick?”

“Well it makes as much sense as a guy whose head disappears, a woman who makes things float, and a big jerk who sets his finger on fire being able to cast the planet’s greatest villain, and his algae-dealing brother into oblivion for ever.”

“You have a point.”

“No offense,” said Mage-e-not.

“Of course not.”

“We shuffle powers,” said Ono, “zing, whish, whoosh symbiotically.”

I nodded wisely as if I had any idea what sympytockicly meant.

“Do I smell fish sticks?” asked Akwar.

We all froze until she went away. Several seconds after she disappeared, Mage-e-not whispered, “That’s what we were trying to make, fish sticks.”

A number of things popped into my mind. First, I thought – that’s why Swampy was acting so strangely. Second, I thought – how can we stop Akwar from popping in on us like that – but I imagined that I was hearing her voice again in the bushes, so I stopped thinking that. Thirdly, I thought – what would ever lead Mage-e-not and Ono to believe their powers combined might turn regular sticks into fish sticks. I didn’t express this third thought because I was afraid that it was something obvious that I was missing, and I didn’t want to look stupid in front of Ono. Fourthly, I thought – I’ve been standing here for a while without saying anything, and they are both staring at me expecting me to say something, so I better say something fast. Fifthly, I thought – I can’t think of anything to say that sounds halfway intelligent. Sixthly, I thought – Maybe I can do that thing the monks do and trust that if I relax and open my mouth, truth will flow.

“Gum is sticky,” I said.

“I can’t argue with that,” said Mage-e-not.

Eighthly, I thought, (after cursing myself seventhly) – I have to remember that that trick only works with monks.

“I’m glad that monks came up,” I said, belatedly realizing that it had only come up in my inner monologue, “because I want to talk to you two about Phasia.”

“Big place,” said Mage-e-not.

“Zim, zing math,” said Ono.

For not the first time I considered how Ono’s sound words were not always a clear indication of what she wanted to communicate. “Do you like math, Ono?” I asked.

She nodded noncommittally.

“That’s good,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “I’ve talked to Dirk, as you know, and I have good news and bad news.”

I’m not sure what either of them said, because for a few seconds my hearing, my field of vision, my sense of touch and even my taste buds broadcast the color red to me. I couldn’t believe I had said that I had good news and bad news. I tried to imagine the things I would rather have said to Ono. Phrases like, ‘I’m sexually unable to please a woman,’ came to mind. I couldn’t stand the old, ‘I have good news and bad news’ line. As far as I was concerned, the bad news was that I would have to go through with this stupid pattern of insincere exposition, and the good news was that I would die eventually – hopefully.

And why was it that while my sight, taste, hearing and touch was all red, that my nose was smelling fish sticks?

They were looking at me again. It was my turn to speak, and I had already used my, ‘gum is sticky,’ line. Best to say it straight out.

“The bad news is that I’ll be banished to the land of So-Ho with Dirk; the good news is that Phasia is free of the global swarming threat, so you can go to Phasia with Tease.”

“I fear not,” said Tease, who Akwar-like appeared behind me “because my order allows only one carry-on when we travel.”

“What’s your carry-on?” asked Mage-e-not.

From beneath his robes, Tease produced his loofah, which made Ono blush, and me to feel strangely inadequate.

“But Tease,” I said, “they have to go with you. You and Swampy are all that stand between Ono and Lustavious’ non-fraternal intentions.”

“Even so,” said Tease.

Ono looked me in the eyes. They were sad, beautiful eyes. They made me feel like going swimming. I don’t know why. “You want me to go with him?” she asked without a single sound word.

“I can’t take you with me,” I said. “Dirk tells me that the trip would kill you or that you would at least lose half your nose. This continent is doomed, and this is the only way to save you.”

“Is the continent doomed?” Mage-e-not asked Tease.

“Yes,” said Tease.

“What’s the idea of keeping it a secret?”

“I wasn’t keeping it a secret. You didn’t ask me until just now.”

“I can’t argue with that,” said Mage-e-not.

“Lip Ton Tease,” said Ono, “if I we sizzle for Showr Rinn, we shuffle to Phasia?”

“If you can prove your usefulness? yes, the masters would consent.”

“What about,” said Mage-e-not, “if Ono and I can create fish sticks out of regular sticks?”

“With or without tartar sauce?”

“We haven’t worked on tartar sauce yet.”

“Talk to me when you have.”

“Naught ought,” said Ono. “Mingle at tinkle creek.”

“I hope she means the brook,” said Mage-e-not.

We stepped over to the brook. Ono raised her hands and said, “sprinkle ups-a-daisy.”

Water rose up out of the brook and began showering down – mostly on Tease, but like most of Ono’s spells, not everything went where it was meant to. A bit of moss attached itself to her face, giving her a distinguished looking mustache. A small fish landed in Mage-e-not’s hand. He stared at it intently.

“Be a fish stick,” he said, and his head disappeared.

The fish looked resentfully at where Mage-e-not’s face should have been, wiggled out of his hand, and flopped its way back to the brook.

Water sparkled on Tease’s brow as he loofah’d his head vigorously. “Your ability,” he said to Ono, “is a truly useful talent. Can you tolerate being around hundreds of naked men?”

“Mutter, shrug,” said Ono.

“Then you may come to Phasia.”

“What about me?” asked Mage-e-not.

“What talent do you have?”

Mage-e-not’s head blinked back and forth between visible and invisible.

“I am sorry,” said Tease. “I would not be permitted to bring you.”

“Neigh,” said Ono. “Mage-e-not whoosh as carry-on.”

“What about Swampy?” I asked.

“Swampy has always been welcome,” said Tease. “Wise birds are honored in my order.”

“There are more birds like Swampy?”

“No,” said Tease as if he completed a masterful poem.

I searched folk tune on YouTube and got this.  Pretty, but they should enunciate better.  I couldn't understand a word.

Dirk Destroyer Part 32 Chapter 15 Part 1

So here we are, more than half-way through the story, and the guy whose name is in the title finally shows up. (I’m not sure if he’s the title character or Elmer is.)

For those just joining us, Elmer, Dirk’s brother, is traveling with the Fellowship of the Bring, a group dedicated to hunting down Dirk in order to cast him, along with Elmer into oblivion. In the process, Elmer has fallen in love with Ono, a magical if somewhat clumsy member of the fellowship of the bring, and though he probably wouldn’t like to admit it, Elmer has also befriended another member, Mage-e-not, an only slightly magical and largely pathetic guy who can disappear from the neck up.

Chapter 15

Dirk

We were free of the sheep. We had food, and Lip Ton Tease had stayed so long in the shower that he was serenely pruned. We were all very tired, but Uriculous, now back in command of Jonma Claim insisted that as we had daylight we push on.

He got tired after a couple of miles, curled up under a tree, and so did the rest of us. Ono slept with her head on my stomach. As I looked down, I thought how delightfully delicate and pretty her nostril cavities were.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. No, I can’t tell you what was so pretty about them. Well, they were small, which is a good quality for nostril cavities in general – unless you need to take in a lot of oxygen all at once. But she was sleeping peacefully, with only a hint of snoring, so I think her oxygen supply was not only sufficient but probably delighted to be inhaled by such delicate and attractive nasal apertures.

There’s not much more I can tell you about her nostril cavities – at least at this present moment. If I think of something else later on in the story, I’ll let you know.

So we slept through the late afternoon and through the evening, and that’s how it came to be that all of our party was wide awake in the middle of the night, watching for sheep armies, and without anything much to do.

“Anybody know any jokes?” asked Mage-e-not.

Silence.

“How about songs?”

Silence.

“Ghost stories?”

“No!” sputtered Jonma Claim. “Try to sleep. We need to go farther tomorrow.”

“Do you know where we’re going?” asked Mage-e-not.

Jonma Claim turned away as if he hadn’t heard.

“If you don’t know where we’re going, maybe we’re already there.”

“I know where we’re going,” snapped Jonma Claim.

“Where?”

“Farther than we went today.”

“That’s just a trick answer.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Find a way to amuse yourself.”

“Know any jokes?”

Ono and I decided to go for a walk. Ono kept her pretty nostril cavities fashionably pointed downwards while she walked. It significantly reduced her chances of drowning in a rain storm. It was just one of the wonderfully clever things I was discovering about her at the time.

Strangely, Swampy left us alone this time.

“Do you have any more cigars?” asked Ono speaking again without her sound words as we were alone.

“I have two,” I said, “but I don’t have any matches.”

“Maybe we should ask Lustavious.”

“But you’re afraid of him,” I said.

“Not so much with you.”

Here it was - the first evidence I’d ever come across to indicate that infatuation diminishes not only the thinking ability of men, but of women as well. Without Swampy around, I was about as much protection from Lustavious as Mage-e-not’s torn and tomato pasted shirt. Thankfully, in this matter at least, my thinking was not so muddled.

“Maybe they’ll make a campfire tomorrow, and we can light them then.”

“Need a match?” A light flared a few paces away, illuminating a very familiar face.

“Dirk!” I said, too loud as there was a Light Bringer not very far away.

“So ‘Mer,” said Dirk. “You going to light those cigars, or let me burn my thumb.”

“Sorry,” I said, and pulled out my last two cigars, which I lit simultaneously by putting both in my mouth. That Ono didn’t complain was testament to how perfect a young woman she was.

I handed one toward her.

“Oh, no,” said Ono. “Dirk should puff and wheeze.”

“Brought my own, Little Lady,” said Dirk, and Ono clapped her hands together, actually excited that she got to have a cigar that only moments before had been in my mouth. Instead of taking the cigar, she concentrated on it and it lifted from my hand. At first I thought it would fly directly to her mouth, but then it started flying erratically, nearly burning Dirk’s whiskers at one point.

“Telekinesis!” said Dirk – impressed in spite of the danger to his facial hair.

“Magic,” said Ono and I at the same time.

“You’re talking in unison?” Dirk remarked.

The cigar found its way to Ono’s dainty lips where she drew on it with relish.

What a woman.

“Dirk,” I said. “There’s a Light Bringer’s party over that way.”

“Yup,” said Dirk, just managing to light his cigar before the match burned down.

“You know about it?”

“Yup,” he said again. Dirk wasn’t very talkative once he’d lit a new cigar.

While Dirk isn’t saying much, it might be customary for me to give a description of my brother. Well, you know about his whiskers – let’s see, what else? The problem is that Dirk has been around as long as I can remember, and for all but the first couple of decades of our lives, he really hasn’t changed much. What’s changed has been my description of the people I meet. I might have described someone as tall, before I met the Alcinder Jabbar people of the Laker region.

I might have described someone as tan until I met the smiling theatrical people of Hamilton Gorge.

But Dirk was always Dirk, and he appeared to me just about as Dirk-like as it gets. I’ve met a number of people who have similar features, or attitudes to my brother, but not a single one was as Dirkish as Dirk.

Here are two guys that, like Dirk, were more themselves than any others I've ever seen.

Dirk Destroyer Part 19 Chapter 10 Part 1

The Fellowship of the Bring has gone underground to escape a large number of unsheep-like sheep. There they meet someone.

Chapter 10

All Bore

So Jonma Carry ran into someone while he was digging deep into the earth and slinging mud on everyone. That was curious. I hoped it was someone alive. I repelled the dirt from my person, and easily caught up with the waddling Jonma Claim. The man I caught up to wasn’t Uriculous – at least not at that moment.

“Probably a rich widow,” muttered Jonma Claim, “or maybe a big money campaign contributor. He’d think that’s important. Too much money and dirt in politics! We need straight talk, and no temptation.”

I didn’t think Jonma Claim was talking to me so I didn’t respond. Maybe he wasn’t even aware I was there.

“Look at this big hole in the ground,” he muttered. “Cap and trade will fix it! Cap and trade will fix it all! I heard that once and it’s straight talk. That’s what I’m known for – straight talk.”

By this point we encountered Jonma Carry, who grumbled something back at Jonma Claim, I kept my distance from the two Jonmas, as much to avoid the tedium of their discussion as anything else. Little wonder that both the Jonmas had been politicians. Most politicians seemed to believe that if they talked to you long enough, that you had to agree with them.

Dirk told me once that there was a place where politicians could speak into the air and be heard by millions, all at once. I wondered if these millions of hearers had any choice in the matter. Dirk didn’t say, and I suspect – as Dirk spent most of his time in oblivion – that he was just making the whole thing up.

Imagine a place where you had no choice but to listen to politicians. What kind of crimes would you have to commit to be condemned to such a place?

“It’s called, Boogle,” said a droning voice at the end of the excavation. “Just try it.”

“But doesn’t it cost money?” asked Lip Ton Tease.

“Not initially,” said the voice, which emanated from a rotund man, as bland looking as his voice sounded. “We make our money with repeat customers.” Then he looked at Tease. “Say Boogle.”

“Boogle,” said Tease, and a magical red arrow appeared over Tease’s head, though as we were in a cave, it was hard to determine what it was pointing at, other than the cave wall.

“It’s true,” said Tease. “The arrow is pointing to the legendary showers of Wa-Wa World. I have always desired to experience them.”

“Who’s next,” the voice said with a slight elevation in its drone.

“Boogle,” said Lustavious. A red arrow appeared, pointing directly at Ono’s butt. Having seen what his arrow was pointing at, I knew that this was not a good time for me to say, Boogle.

The voice laughed humorlessly. “It’s very useful magic, to show you what you desire. I didn’t invent this particular application, but as I am the inventor of magic, I receive a royalty every time someone uses it.”

“You invented magic?” said Mage-e-not.

“By the legal definition, yes,” said the dull voice, “and you, Sir, owe me quite a tidy sum for all the times your head has disappeared.”

“But no one told me…”

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse. What a handy phrase that is when suing people.”

“Milk the cows,” said Swampy for no reason I could think of.

“Say,” said the bland man, “is this the destroyer?”

“That’s his brother,” said Jonma Claim behind me, who was apparently back to being Uriculous.

“All Bore,” said the man, holding out a limp hand for some reason.

“Elmer McFarland,” I responded, guessing that All Bore was the man’s name, and not some command that I begin to speak like he did.

“McFarland,” said All Bore. “I have no copyright on that name, or on Elmer. I guess you go free.”

That didn’t make any sense to me, so I ignored it. “Did I hear you say you invented magic?”

“For all legal purposes, yes,” he said.

“How old are you?”

“I am sixty-five years old.”

“But magic has been around much longer than that.”

“That may be,” said All Bore, “but no-one claimed the rights to it until I did.”

“So even though you did nothing, you claim the credit?”

“I did something,” said All Bore.

“What’s that?”

“I filed the proper paperwork.”

“But then what’s to stop you from charging people for running, or whistling, or even breathing.”

“Keep your voice down,” said All Bore. “Those patents are still pending.”

Will the Fellowship get out of their underground predicament? Will they be assaulted by the unsheep-like sheep? Will they be bored to death by All Bore? Will the Chicago Cubs ever win a World Series? Some of the answers to these questions can be found in future installments of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother!

   Here's a song from Tom Lehrer that All Bore might like - assuming he shut up long enough to listen to it.

Dirk Destroyer Part 15 Chapter Part 1

This is the 15^th installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, an unpublished novel I had to give up due to the Donald Trump Ubiquity Law or 2015. If you’re just starting in, the hero is Elmer McFarland, or Elmer Destroyer, or Destroyer, or Hey You. There are no villains, though I can’t say I like some of the characters too much. For instance, I sure am glad we don’t have that Jonma Claim guy in our universe.

Chapter…

(I lost track – look it up.)

Nobody got up to relieve me, so I didn’t feel so bad about falling asleep. There were sheep all over the campsite, eating Carry’s beans, Mage-e-not’s shirt, and two of my precious store of matches. I asked Lustavious for a light, but he was in a grumpy mood, probably because Swampy wouldn’t leave Ono alone, and Swampy seemed to be the only being capable of stopping Lustavious from moving on Ono.

“Ono and the bird are inseparable,” Lustavious sang to me in a low – Leonard Cohen-type drone.

“I understand,” I said to Lustavious. “If you want, I can ask to talk to Ono and you can have time alone with Swampy.”

That really wasn’t a way to get a light from the Light Bringer.

“Say,” said Mage-e-not, awake now and looking at the state of his shirt. “You still using that bag?”

I looked into my cigar bag. I had smoked enough that there were only a couple cigars left. I managed to cram them into my fanny pack and handed the bag to Mage-e-not.

“Thanks,” he said. “I wonder how I can use this to patch my shirt without thread.”

I shrugged my shoulders in the universal gesture of, beats me.

“It’s just that I don’t look so good shirtless.”

I had to agree.

Tip Ton Tease was meditating while balanced on a slender branch twenty feet above where Jonma Carry had been sleeping. The tree was missing all its bark close to the ground – probably from sheep grazing.

“Why are you up there, Tease?” asked Lustavious.

“The thirty-fifth idea.”

“Oh… What do you see?”

Tease put his thumb and forefingers to his earlobes before responding, though it was hard to see how he might have gotten water in his ears up in a tree. “Sheep,” he said.

“What else?”

“More sheep.”

“What-do-you-mean, more sheep,” sputtered Jonma Claim. “Light Bringer, lift me up so I can see.”

The awkward little man waddled over to where Lustavious – reluctant, but obedient, lifted him into the air.

“Higher!” barked Jonma Claim.

“Top floor,” grunted Lustavious.

Suddenly the annoying host of Uriculous Wisehind began to rise.

“What kind of…” sputtered Jonma Claim… with a few spasms thrown in. “Destroyer, what are you doing?”

“You squawk for upsey,” said Ono who was clearly working very hard to keep the doughy Jonma Claim airborne.

“It can’t be!” Jonma Claim spitted.

“What?” asked Mage-e-not who had somehow found a way to join the bag to his shirt making an astoundingly ugly garment.

“There are sheep,” said Jonma Claim crossly.

“Isn’t that what Tease said?” I asked.

“But so many!” sputtered Jonma Claim. His body began to sway to the east. “Stop it,” he barked, but his body began moving even faster to the southwest.

“Whoop, swoon, swish,” said Ono.

“As High Priest, I command you!” commanded Jonma Claim... with a sputter.

“I would put him down, Ono,” said Mage-e-not.

“Squeak, sway, thump, thud!” said Ono, clearly distressed.

“Destroyer!” barked Jonma Claim. “Do something!”

“But you’re always telling me not to do things,” I said to him not helpfully. I enjoyed the look on Jonma Claim’s face, but then I glanced at Ono, and saw both panic and betrayal etched across her features.

“Hold on,” I said, and I tried to bring my limited telekinetic powers to bear. If I’d been a better telekinete, or if Jonma Claim had not been a moving target, I might have had more success. Whether it was my effect, or Ono’s magic, Jonma Claim’s swooping went from two dimensions to three, now shooting up near the treetops, then crashing down to within a couple of body lengths from the ground.

“Can’t you let him go when he’s low?” asked Mage-e-not.

Ono, her face set in determination, shook her head no.

“It would probably kill him, anyway,” said Jonma Carry in a tone that showed that wouldn’t bother him overly.

“This is unacceptable!” blustered Jonma Claim. “I will not have this!”

I almost gave up trying right there. Why should I care if the dead man died again?

“To me,” said Tease, still up in his tree.

Adding Tease to the equation, I came up with a plan. Instead of trying to grab Jonma Claim from Ono’s magical grasp, I started to build barriers of compressed air, herding the bouncing Jonma Claim closer to Tease’s location. Tease jumped from branch to branch, many of them too thin to support my fanny pack, much less two men.

“Let go,” called Tease, as he lunged for Jonma Claim. Ono swooned falling to the ground. Lustavious was about to catch her when Swampy hissed at him. Quickly, I brought loam and soft earth up to cushion her as she came to ground. She bounced gently as she might on a good mattress.

Tease landed moments later, Jonma Claim in his arms.

“Just like your brother!” Jonma Claim sputtered. “Thank the really good ideas that the world will soon be rid of you both.”

“I did my best,” I said.

“To get me killed!” he replied reproachfully with both a sputter and a spasm.

What will the Fellowship of the Bring do surrounded so completely by a seemingly endless flock of sheep? Me, I’d just push my way through and watch my step for doo-doo, but on the Planet 2, the thirty-fifth Really Good Idea might not allow that. We’ll find out next Friday… (Actually, I already know. I’m just trying to establish community here.)

For some reason, ELO kept running in my head as I wrote this.

Dirk Destroyer Part 6 Chapter 2 part 2

Though this is the 6^th installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, everything is just getting started. Check back every Friday (or the five previous Fridays,) for other excerpts.

Whatever Ceasaran had been about to say was cut short by three MOIST agents. One of the women who was wearing an official limited edition Moist trench coat shouted, “Hey you!” Ceasaran sighed and closed his window.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I’ve been around a long time, and you might think that I had learned a thing or two. Sure, I knew how to levitate a bag of cigars, and draw gold out of the ground, but that didn’t stop me from having the same reaction that every male has had for eternity when a woman yells, “hey, you,.” I looked around at a landscape that included several hundred sheep, a swamprat bird, and myself, and threw up my hands in the universal gesture, ‘who me?’

“Yes, you,” shouted the MOIST agent. “Come here, and try not to bother the sheep.”

I gingerly picked my way through to the edge of the flock, pausing each time one of them wanted to sniff the bag I was holding, my shoes, my crotch, anything that in their stupid minds they thought might have food in it.

“Took you long enough,” grunted the agent as I finally got through. The other female agent – not wearing a limited edition Moist trench coat, probably because she was much prettier than the first, pointed at the bag I was carrying.

“Are those fizzle wisp phew cigars?” she asked.

It was an odd choice of words, but I nodded my head.

“Can I sizzle sniff slurp one?”

As you might expect, telekinesis doesn’t worry me. My brother played every possible telekinetic joke on me before he was banished to oblivion forever the first time, but my brother wasn’t there, so I was a little surprised when the bag lifted out of my hand.

“Don’t be stupid, Ono,” said the first female agent in as abrasive voice as I’ve heard billarian clinbirds use, and that’s as abrasive as a voice can get. My bag jerked high into the air with cigars and matches flying in every direction.

“Whoops whoop yelp,” said the second female agent in an apologetic if not intelligible voice. I summoned what skill I had in gathering the errant cigars before they hit the ground, but most of the matches landed in puddles of sheep urine – a very effective solvent for mercury tipped inflammatories.

“Cigar smoking is a nasty habit, Ono,” said the first agent.

“It bugs the sheep,” said the male agent, who until that moment had been standing silently in the background. He also was not wearing a limited edition MOIST trench coat, but not because he was pretty at all. He was short, dumpy, balding and had on a particularly ugly shirt.

The first agent stared at the male, as if her eyes had the ability to melt rock. Curiously that is not the hyperbole it seems, for I had seen Dirk do just that to a rock that Uriculous Wisehind had been sitting on. For a moment I thought the first agent had such an ability. The face of the male agent disappeared.

He did not fall over however, and when I heard the void above his collar say, “sorry,” I concluded that he probably hadn’t been melted.

“As you can see, brother of the evil Dirk Destroyer,” said the first agent, “you are in the presence of two very powerful wizards, so I would watch my step if I were you.” Her warning would have carried more force if not for an unfortunate coincidence. As she stomped forward to emphasize the word, ‘step,’ her foot landed in… Well, there were several hundred sheep around.

“Boot slop,” said Swampy helpfully.

The second agent- the pretty one - who was apparently named, Ono, smiled at the hideous bird, and Swampy flew over to perch on her shoulder without releasing any form of defecation.

“As I was saying,” said the first agent. “The man who stands before you, destroyer-brother, is the great wizard, Mage-e-not. He has the power to make himself invisible!”

The headless apparition before me straightened, supposedly to assume his full – though not impressive height which was further diminished by his missing head.

“But I can see you, Mage-e-not,” I said.

“You see my clothes!”

I looked over the eighty percent man in front of me. “But I can see your hands too.”

“But you can’t see my head!”

“I have a good idea where it is,” and I flicked a urine-moistened match in the general direction of his nose. The man flinched, but too late as the match bounced off of something.

“Stop that!” demanded the first agent. Mage-e-not’s face reappeared, and he wiped it with the sleeve of his newly urine speckled shirt.

“This young wizard,” said the first agent, gesturing to the other woman agent, “is Onomaterpoeia Upsala.”

“We just call her Ono,” said Mage-e-not, who then disappeared again when the first agent glared at him.

“As Onomaterpoeia has already demonstrated, she is a master wizard of matter displacement.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said to Ono.

“Hoot tickled,” she responded in a friendly fashion.

“Hoot hottie,” said Swampy, who made me think, not for the first time, that he had a better command of human speech than he was letting on.

“My name is Elmer,” I said.

“We know who you are, Elmer Destroyer.”

“Actually, my last name is McFarland, but it’s been so long since anyone’s called me that that I just answer to…”

“Tremble in fear!” bellowed the first agent who had not introduced herself, “for there is one other member of this glorious party – the greatest wizard of them all.”

“A Light Bringer?” I asked.

“THE Light Bringer,” the first agent boomed. “The great and magnificent, Lustavious Brachenhun.”

“Oh,” I said, “where’s he, or she?”

“HE’s back at the ministry,” said Ono. “HE couldn’t come.”

“Yeah,” said Mage-e-not. “He had a date.”

“Will you come with us peaceably,” asked the first agent, “or will our wizards need to bind you with their glorious power?”

“No, I’ll come.”

The first agent stepped forth magnificently except for the squishy sound that her sheep begrimed boot made. The other two hung back a couple paces, and I fell in step with them.

“So what’s with her?” I asked. “Is she some sort of wizard too?”

“Oh no,” said Ono, “She’s just a slap slash whip whirr agent.”

“What’s her name?”

“Youtickubus Akwar.”

“Yeah,” said Mage-e-not, “she’s a real pain, and she shows up everywhere I go.”

And that’s all there is of chapter 2. Only 40 to go (give or take.) The good news is that you’re starting to meet the characters in the story. The bad news is that Youtickubus Akwar is one of them.

Speaking or annoying people…