Copyright William Read 1998
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(remove the zzz in the address!)The Aimless Quest of Bungston Shag
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. Chapter 17. Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Chapter 20. Epilogue.Chapter 10
The mob made its way through town with Bungston and Robigus in the midst of it. The two grabbed sticks when they had the opportunity, both to blend in and also because it seemed like there might be a need for them, judging by the attitude of the crowd. The angry group stormed shouting and brandishing arms up a hill to an old graveyard. There they picked their way among the crumbling tombstones to join a substantial throng already milling about. The torches and lanterns sent wild shadows leaping and bounding about the decrepit stones like a crazed troop of ghouls. All attention was focused on one unnaturally large figure which shambled back and forth atop a big mausoleum on the crest of the hill, where it was hemmed in by the growing crowd. A man standing near Bungston swore in fright at the size of its teeth, and grabbed his candelabra a little tighter. The beast was hideous and hairy, and its cornered howls and shrieks penetrated through the yells of the crowd. It bared its awesome canines often, and swiped at any daring soul which drew near. It looked like it was wearing a sombrero decorated with wax fruit.
"Oh man. How did he get up there? Now what do we do?" cried Bungston in despair. "We'll never get rid of this crowd." The wizard looked at the people nearby, who, although well armed, did not seem overly interested in using their weapons. At the edge of the graveyard a group of people were trying to melt down a silver candelabra in an effort to cast bullets.
The creature atop the mausoleum began to sing in an incomprehensibly hoarse voice, adding a few shambly dance moves here and there and occasionally tipping his sombrero to the crowd. "If ya want my baaahhdie and ya think I'm sehhhxie..." The milling crowd nervously shifted farther away from this evil monster dancing atop a house of the dead. Someone threw a rock. The shaggy beast was quick to respond in kind by plucking a bunch of wax grapes off of his sombrero and winging it at his assailant. It was a pretty bad shot, but the crowd was so dense it had to hit somebody.
Robigus prodded Bungston's shoulder. "You must do something, Bungston. Soon they will begin shooting."
The wizard hemmed and hawed a bit. "uh, FREE BEER!", he shouted. It was obvious, however, that Bungston had no beer, and he was ignored. A squad of armed police was moving purposefully up the hill toward the graveyard. Bungston was in a dilemma. He didn't want to do anything that might hurt the townspeople in the crowd; heck, if a big hairy monster showed up in his city he'd probably go to see it too, and take the kids. Maybe not the kids. The wizard briefly considered trying to animate the dead, since there were so many handy, but it would probably take about an hour for a bunch of scroungy old skeletons to dig their way out, if they managed to at all.
The police were entering the graveyard gate. Robigus turned to the smaller wizard and shook him vigorously. "Cast a spell, or we shall have to engage these townsfolk in combat!"
"All right, I'm on it, I'm on it!" Bungston rubbed his temples furiously. "Ah - ah - CLAIM TO FAME AND STAIN OF DEW WELL GEEN GEEN GEEN IT'S P-B-Q BUT WHAT A SHAME MY BREATH MY DRESS MY SUGAR CANE A RISKY SIP OF THE OLD NIGHT TRAIN! ANKLE BRACELET WASTREL FACE IT OCELOTS YOU GOTTA MACE IT WANKERS TANKERS QUETZALCOUATL WATTLE ACE IT! WOOO!"
In a blink of an eye the monster on the mausoleum was replaced by a matronly old woman, still wearing a sombrero decorated with wax fruit. She continued to dance around yowling and growling, but soon stopped and stood still after noticing the radically different expressions on the faces of the crowd. "It's the Queen!", shouted someone. "God save the Queen!"
"It's noot the Queen!" retorted another voice. "It's a god-dammed shapeshifting divvil!"
Robigus looked sideways at Bungston. "Not bad on short notice, eh Bob?" boasted the wizard.
It was fortunate that this dubious Queen Victoria was standing on a mausoleum and framed against the sky - it was thus tough to tell that she was over seven feet tall. She seemed a little confused, and was scanning the crowd growling something. "Bung? Bung? Where are you?" Bungston did not dare answer for fear people would get wise; then since he was a little guy with little teeth he did not think the crowd would feel much trepidation about closing in and whaling on him with sticks.
"Kill the shapeshifter!"
"It's the Queen! It's the Queen! You can't kill the Queen!"
"The Queen is a shapeshifter!"
"Down with the Queen! Down with shapeshifters!"
At least I confused the poop out of them, thought Bungston. At that moment the Queen spoke. Her voice had been sadly misused by the singing earlier, and was only a little smoother than a can full of rocks being shaken. "I am your Queen! Kneel before your Queen!", she rasped mightily. A goodly number of people knelt, but most just stared. The squadron of police had pushed to the front of the crowd, but they stood around in confusion, not wanting to shoot the Queen. The captain walked close to the mausoleum and confronted the queen towering above him.
"If you're the Queen - and no offense if you are, your majesty - then what are you doing up there? And what happened to that big troll that was up there a second ago?"
The Queen leaned down and glared at the man, her sombrero blocking out the sky. She pointed a finger at the captain, who couldn't help but notice that the Queen's hand was almost as big as his head. "Listen up, bub," she menacingly growled. "I'm the Queen, and if I want to hang out up here, that's what I'm gonna do. When you're Queen you can do what you want. Got that?"
The captain backed away fearfully from this low-voiced monster monarch. "SOOT TAINTED HOOK BAITED IPECAC BASTARDS! MASSIVE WAVES OF LAMBENT CASTORS!"
Suddenly the sombrero worn by the Queen burst free from her head, sending her gray hair flying. The wax fruits also came loose, but they stayed in orbit about the flying sombrero, no doubt because of the hat's natural attraction for such things. Bungston had previous experience with magically animated PVC pipe, and it came in handy here. The sombrero swooped down and thumped the police chief in the Adam's apple, then glided off along the forefront of the crowd, its satellite grapes and mangos whacking chins and noses as it went. "Beware! Beware my Royal Sombrero of Vengeance!", ad-libbed the Queen in prophetic tones.
The sombrero, however, was taking a lot of abuse from the crowd; Bungston grimaced as a well-swung cricket bat practically inverted the crown. Time to break out the big guns, thought the woeful wizard. He began to shuffle and dance around, doing a sort of mystic hokey-pokey, and chanting rhythmic stuff the whole time. Some townsfolk approached curiously. "You havin' a conniption fit, guvnor?", asked one concerned fellow.
"Stand you away from him!", shouted Robigus imperiously, throwing up a hand. The mildew god cut an intimidating figure in the tatters of his coat and the remnants of his trousers. His eyes flashed though the green spectacles, and people quickly backed off. The air grew thick, making vision difficult. People in the crowd began to emit frenzied curses; this was because a spate of toads and banana slugs had fallen out of the sky and lodged themselves in collars and hats. Bungston himself cursed a little and continued to rant and rave. The rain of critters ceased. "AND BY MY WIGGING BITCHY SNEEZER - THAT TONEDEAF BONELESS FEEBLE REEKING HEAP BIG TEASER!" A gout of hellish blue and purple flame boiled up from the ground with a subdued roar, creating an unearthly pillar of fire which immolated the mausoleum. The crowd jumped back in fright, some crossing themselves and many fleeing outright. The flames immediately subsided to a mere flickering ring, but inside the ring there was no mausoleum. A bare expanse of wet grass confronted the baffled townsfolk, across from which stood other perplexed citizens.
Robigus looked at Bungston in awe. "It is incredible..," he whispered.
The wizard's face looked dehydrated and drawn, his tan having faded to an ashen yellow. He muttered something about mirrors and gave Robigus a shove. "Meet you five blocks west of here. I've got to move fast." The warrior departed with alacrity. Bungston, as a result of his mammoth spell, had obtained a new pair of boots. He put these on, gritted his teeth, and jumped straight up and out of sight into the night sky. By this point no-one was paying much attention to the skinny little man, and his miraculous ascent went unnoticed.
On top of the mausoleum, Napoleon was almost as confused as the townsfolk he was watching. The sudden burst of fire had scared the bejeezus out of the beleaguered mutant, but since he was already aware that Bungston was out in the crowd working magic, he was not worried for long. For a second or two he thought that maybe the wild wizard really had decided to summon up a demon, as per Napoleon's own advice earlier. This was evidently not the case, and now the big maroon dog squatted placidly on top of the mausoleum, watching the police try to stomp out what was left of the ring of supernatural fire. There was a solid thump behind him, and Napoleon spun around to see his master lying spread-eagled on top of the mausoleum. "Hey Bung! That was one awesome trick! Did you make the whole building invisible or what?"
The wizard struggled to his feet and rubbed his quads. "Shut your yapper, they can still hear us," he whispered wearily. For a few moments the wizard just leaned on Napoleon's shoulder. "I should stick to summoning," he said to the big mutant. "I'm a wreck after all these large-scale glamours and stuff." Bungston was silent for a few more seconds, then straightened and turned his back to Napoleon. "Ok, here, hang on to me. I hate these kangaroo boots, but we've got to use them. You on? Alright, here we go." With the shaggy mutant's arms once more obscuring his vision, the wizard did a careful deep knee bend, then sprang back up into the sky, this time at less steep of an angle. Night wind whistled past as they left the crowded graveyard behind, arcing out over the gate and west toward the practically deserted streets. Bungston realized en route that if his previous landing was rough, this one with 300+ pounds of mutant on his back was going to be a lot rougher. "Yo, hey, Nap! Bail out!" The wizard wriggled out of Napoleon's grasp.
"What? Wait!" The puzzled mutant was off and hurtling along by himself before he could do anything about it. Napoleon barely kept from howling in terror on the way down, but he knew that Bungston wouldn't actually let him splat.
Meanwhile, Bungston put his physics knowledge to use and made himself aerodynamic. He beat his flying mutant down to the street. Immediately on touching down, Bungston's famed agility kicked in; the wizard spun, oriented himself, and as Napoleon came hurtling in from above he launched himself in another jump. The magical momentum imparted by the boots perfectly canceled out Napoleon's inertia, and Bungston was left standing still in the street, Napoleon in his arms. He unceremoniously dropped the weighty St. Bernard and began to hustle north. Napoleon caught up fast.
"I'm sorry about all that, Bung. But they were chasing me around, and then I got cornered on top of that grave building, and I figured trying to be nice to them wouldn't do any good..."
"So you pretended to be a killer werewolf to scare holy hell out of them. That's thinking."
"Well, I don't know. They didn't shoot me, and it was a rush. I liked the slugs and toads, by the way. I even caught a big toad, but then I lost it when you jumped."
Bungston was peeved. "That was a by-product. An intermediate. I'm just glad the big one came off as well as it did. There's Bob,"
Robigus was now naked except for the glasses and Bungston's puffin pattern nylon baggies, which had valiantly stuck by him. He emerged from a doorway where he had been waiting and proffered his hand for Bungston to shake. "Truly, that was one of the most amazing feats of wizardry I have ever seen! The pillar of fire - it took the breath away! And then the whole building vanished! But the best was the vermin from the sky; that was an elegant touch few would have added,"
Bungston had sat down on the curb to rest, soaking up the praise until this last, which left him a tad off balance. "Well I'm glad you guys liked those toads so much, but I don't think I had anything to do with it. Just sort of serendipitous. But I don't know, I guess I've never really tried - maybe I could whip up a toadstorm for you both someday." The wizard was warming to the idea of airborne toads. "Maybe I should try a toadstorm right now? I'm in the groove, after all!"
Napoleon was looking nervously over his shoulder. "Yeah, that'd be cool," he grunted, "but maybe we should get moving. There's people coming down the street." Bungston had to concede the wisdom of this idea, and the three adventurers made off down a back alley. Leaving Robigus and Napoleon, Bungston hailed a cab, then went back to pick the two up. The cabbie was distracted by Bungston's loud conversation and nutmeg scented breath, and thus did not get a good look at the near-naked man and bipedal dog which also piled into his cab.
Once in the cab, Napoleon seemed preoccupied. "Er, maybe we shouldn't go back to Mr. Erskine's house," mumbled the mutant. "Maybe we should get our spring machine and just go home." Bungston looked at him suspiciously. "Well, it wasn't my fault!", the St. Bernard protested. "A big garden is private enough, wouldn't you think? But no... have to have a tea party or a cottilion or something out there, with loads of little kids and stuff. It's not that I hurt them or growled or anything; usually little kids like me. Anyway, I meant to stay in the library." The shaggy dog hung his head. In the light of this new information, Bungston agreed that returning to the beach was a capital idea. It was several hours ride to the shore in a cab, but Bungston's reservoir of Avalonian gold proved persuasive. Bungston and Napoleon power napped en route.
Next Chapter of The Aimless Quest of Bungston Shag (11)
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. Chapter 17. Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Chapter 20. Epilogue.