Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion (25 page)

The fat man put a finger to his ear and listened. From the reports coming in he learned that his allies had already mostly surrounded the building, with most of them concentrated in the trio’s most likely avenue of escape, the back. Since they had limited time before the city guard arrived, the fat man decided to risk getting started while their blockade solidified.

Tucking in his shirt, the fat man waddled over in his fine shoes and tortured pants and knocked on The Joker’s front doors.

“We’re closed!” came a voice from inside.

“I’d like to speak with whoever’s in charge,” said the fat man calmly.

“I said sod off, ya sack ’o shit!” came the reply. “There’s a big fight goin’ on in ’ere, real messy. Come back later!”

The fat man sighed. “I believe you all have some idea of what’s going on, so we clearly have matters to discuss. If you don’t at least open this door long enough for us to speak, we will burn this building down and search for what we’re looking for among the wreckage. Naturally, anyone caught trying to escape will be killed.”

There was a long second of silence, and then the voices on the other side of the door began arguing again. The fat man tapped his foot, waiting.

Finally the front doors cracked open, and three sword tips emerged. “Stand back a little so we know you’re not going to rush us.”

“Of course,” said the fat man, waddling backward.

The door opened wider, revealing Scraggly, Silky Hair, and the Professor holding swords. Behind them there did appear to be some kind of altercation going on, one which most of the bar’s patrons had surrounded and were yelling about excitedly. The fat man immediately assumed this was an act.

“What do ya want?” asked Scraggly.

“Three of your patrons have an item that belongs to us,” said the fat man. “A young woman and two young men. It’s a knife, about this long,” he said, holding out his hands to demonstrate, “made of black metal and with a curved design. If you return it to us immediately then we will leave your bar alone.”

“And—just pretending for a moment that these people are here, which I assure you they’re not—what happens if we don’t give the knife to you?” asked the Professor.

“We will burn the building down and search for it among the wreckage. Naturally, anyone caught trying to escape will be killed,” repeated the fat man.

“Ah,” said the Professor. “Well as I said, it’s not here. Could you please not burn down the building? The owner isn’t here at the moment, and he’ll be quite distraught if it’s not here when he returns.”

An explosion went off in the storeroom at the back of the bar. Even as far away as the front door they could hear what sounded like screaming, along with a great deal of cursing. To their credit, not one of the regulars so much as blinked.

The fat man looked toward one of the women standing behind him. She had a hand to her ear and, after listening for a few seconds, nodded. The fat man inclined his head, and this time she shook hers.

“Really now? Because it sounds like they just tried to escape out the back. Unsuccessfully,” the fat man added. The woman nodded again for emphasis.

The three regulars looked at each other. “Could you excuse us for a few? We need to discuss somethin’,” said Scraggly.

“By all means,” said the fat man. “Just make it quick. If you don’t give us an answer within the next five minutes, we will burn the—”

“You’ll burn the building down, we got it,” said Silky Hair as he and the other two maneuvered out of the way. In their place a man big enough to be two men settled in front of the doorway like a glacier coming to a stop in a ravine.

“…excuse us,” added Glacier, and then the doors shut.

The fat man walked away, to wait. That’s when he realized a crowd had formed, and he recalled the Houkian people’s legendary love for impromptu street theater.

He jabbed a thumb at the bar. “They haven’t paid their bills.”

*      *      *

The sounds of commotion coming from the back storeroom continued for half a minute after the explosion, and then the storeroom door burst open and disgorged Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren back into the bar proper. Mazik was the last through, stopping briefly to turn back and fire one last spell at the cultists who had been lying in wait. Making sure to carefully aim around all the beer, Mazik’s blast lifted the two cultists off their feet and hurled them back through the door.

“So, that way’s out,” said Mazik as he dusted himself off.

“Hold on,” said Scraggly as he and the Professor hustled over. They quickly filled the trio in on what the fat man told them.

“Well shit,” said Mazik. “How much longer do we have?”

“About three minutes, but we can probably ask for more,” said the Professor.

“Do that,” said Mazik. Then he remembered himself, and added, “Please. We need a few minutes to figure out what to do.” Mazik stopped and turned back. “Unless you all want us to give them the knife? Serious question.”

“Fuck no,” said Scraggly immediately. “I don’t think there’s anyone here wants ta give ’em anything but an ass kickin’. Besides, you know Houkians don’t like bein’ told what ta do.”

Mazik grinned. “Damn right.”

The trio huddled around the bar. “Okay, so we know they want this,” said Mazik, patting the sheathed knife, “and I believe we’re in agreement that we shouldn’t give it to them. That means we need to get out of here. Thoughts?”

“There are only two ways out of here, the front and the back,” said Gavi.

“Do we have any options other than running away?” asked Raedren.

“We could give up the knife, which we don’t want to do, go outside and fight them, which will either be suicide or result in some serious collateral damage, or let the bar burn down,” said Mazik. “So yes, but they all suck.”

“Did Mazik just vote
against
collateral damage?” asked Raedren.

“Yes, and I’m aghast too, but no time for that,” said Gavi. “I agree, running away is the best option. Other than maybe holing up and hoping the city guard comes soon, but—”

“They’ll burn the place down,” Mazik finished for her.

“Yes,” said Gavi. “So do we just pick a door and go for it?”

“That also sounds like suicide,” said Mazik. “There has to be another way.”

Mazik closed his eyes, his fingers rapping on the bar as he thought.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
It wasn’t long before a slow smile spread across his face.

“I know what to do,” said Mazik. “They expect us to go out the front or the back, right?”

“If we decide to run, yes,” said Raedren.

Mazik grinned, and then spun in his chair until he was facing the blank wall next to the liquor cabinets. “Well, we know what to do when there isn’t a door where we need one, don’t we?” he said, his hands already glowing.

“Oh, no,” said Gavi as Mazik walked over to the nearest wall and kneeled. “Hold on a second!” said Gavi, running over and grabbing his wrists. “Have you even thought of what we’d do once we’re out there? Even ignoring the fact that I’m not sure this building will stay standing if you cut random holes in it. What if there are enemies out there?”

“Sounds like a later problem,” said Mazik, though he didn’t pull his hands away. “All we need is a bit of a head start, and then we attack one or two of them to draw their attention away.”

“And then die horrible deaths when they’re all chasing us?” asked Raedren.

“That’s what the head start is for,” said Mazik. “Also, we’d need to run really, really fast and hide when possible. That plus you shielding us.”

“I’d like to nominate myself for MVP of all quests and/or fights from here on out,” said Raedren.

“Motion approved, you’re the best,” said Mazik immediately. “Do you guys have a better idea? We’re running out of time.”

“No, but…” Gavi groaned. “You just like this trick, don’t you?”

“Pretty much!” said Mazik. He tapped his forehead. “Lateral thinking.” Then he bent over the wall, his hands glowing again. “So, shall I…?”

“Hold on,” said Tielyr. “I have an idea.”

The trio turned to see Tielyr standing up behind the bar, Derana clinging to him. Tielyr was a man of few words who rarely inserted himself into other’s conversations, so to hear him do so now made it feel like he was about to say something important. Also they were desperate.

“What’s that?” asked Mazik.

Tielyr gave them a rare, tight smile, and then turned to the patrons still shouting and cheering over the imaginary fight. He raised his voice so he could be heard above them.

“Who has a bar tab they’d like cleared?” asked Tielyr.

Nearly everyone in the bar raised their hands.

“I’m still confused, and I don’t really know whether this is even worth asking, but do I qualify?” asked Mazik hopefully.

“No. You’ll be the one clearing them,” said Tielyr.

“Ah. Right-o. Fantastic,” said Mazik. He thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Whatever. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking, it ought to be worth the money.”

“I’ll see about giving you a discount,” said Tielyr as he pointed to some of the patrons wearing robes or wielding weapons. He waved them over. “Just don’t die.”

Mazik nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

*      *      *

The fat man in the too-tight suit looked at his pocket watch again and sighed. The people inside had asked for more time twice, and he gave it to them both times because he and his allies’ chances of finding the knife before the authorities arrived would be seriously reduced if they had to burn the building down and search through the wreckage, but now it looked like he had no choice. Or rather, he did have a choice, but he was choosing to follow through with his threat rather than retreat. Giving up would have proven much more certainly fatal for him than a little arson and murder.

The fat man waved to a cultist holding a box of matches and an unlit torch. “Go ahead.”

“Yes sir,” said the other cultist as he lit the torch and dragged it along The Joker’s front wall. The aged wood resisted lighting at first, but soon it began to blacken and smolder.

Suddenly, a bright blue spell flew down from above and struck the arsonist, spinning him around and dropping the torch to a dead piece of ground.

“Has the city guard arrived?” demanded the fat man, spinning around.

“Not quite!” called a voice from on high. The fat man looked up, searching for the source, and that’s when a sphere of blue mana crashed into him, burning away most of his shields and dumping him soundly on his rear. That was when he found him.

“Come on, you bastards! Up here!” yelled Mazik from atop the Dirty Hammock. Over his battle-damaged robes Mazik now wore a coarse brown cloak with a hood that was currently thrown back. In one hand Mazik held the cultists’ black knife, waving it like a cat toy, while in the other was a sphere of blue mana. The latter was growing rapidly.

The fat man shuddered and tried to get to his feet, but found they weren’t working as well as he would have liked. “They’re up there, on the roof!” he yelled, pointing.

“There ya go. One point for the dead man!” said Mazik, grinning from ear to ear.

The fat man’s comrades moved away from The Joker and began to converge on the Dirty Hammock. They also began to chant, deep indigo mana curling around them as spells were intoned.

“Hey, I have names for some of my spells too!” said Mazik, his grin not receding at all in the face of all the power amassed against him. He stowed the knife in his robes and cupped the sphere of mana in both hands, raising it high over his head. “You want to know what this one is called?”

The closest of the fat man’s allies finished her incantation and fired at Mazik. He ignored her, the spell splashing harmlessly against his barriers. Mazik didn’t even blink.

“C’mon, ya wunna know?” Mazik asked again. Then the sphere over his head inflated to many times its size. “Oh well, I guess I’ll tell you anyway,” he said, dark delight dancing in his voice. “It’s called …
Mazik Missiles!”

And the magick sang out, the sphere separating into ten, twenty, nearly thirty individual bolts, each one tracking toward a different target.

The fat man was unlucky. It was hard to aim so many projectiles at once, especially when so many of Mazik’s targets were invisible, moving, far away, or in a crowd of bystanders. While some bolts hit, many missed entirely, while others exploded harmlessly overhead on purpose. Some missed so badly their targets wondered if he had even been aiming at them at all.

But three bolts struck the fat man. The first shattered the rest of his barriers, the next hollowed out his chest, and the third flash-fried his guts.

By the time the fat man fell, Mazik was already gone.

*      *      *

Cultists tracked Mazik as he ran across the Dirty Hammock’s roof, putting The Joker’s front door and the fat man’s corpse directly behind him. They watched up until Mazik’s body glowed blue. Then spells struck the cultists watching him from the rooftops, pushing them back into the streets below.

Mazik flipped the hood of his brown cloak over his head as he approached the edge of the roof. He didn’t slow down, his hands glowing brightly as he sped toward the edge. He cast another spell.

Blue bolts reached down into the alley between the buildings on The Joker’s side of the block, facing Halnh Avenue, and those facing the street behind it, the blinding light performing what could be aptly described as a firebombing of the alley. Mana belched skyward as the cultists shielded themselves or ran away, escaping into nearby alleyways in an attempt to escape the flames.

—and in the process, several cultists ran right past the side of The Joker, a wall which very deliberately did
not
have a hole in it anymore. The circle of wood had been carefully pulled back into place and sealed with sawdust and corkscrews, while the side door Mazik and the others used to enter the Dirty Hammock was closed as well.

As Mazik’s spell scoured the alley so harshly that even the stubborn Houkian dirt and rubbish began to burn away, Mazik ran right up to the edge of the roof and
leapt.