Chapter 3

         Ian was getting restless.

         "You've been mooning around here all week, Bert," he said finally. "We've got to get moving in a few days; you can't act like this when we go."

         Magbert grinned. "It's this girl I met," he began dreamily. "She's just..." He faded off in the middle of his sentence.

         "Ruining your attention span," sighed Ian. "I'll have to discuss this with the witch at length."

         "No witch," said Magbert. "Just a singer at the tavern named Crystal. You remember her. She was singing...(he paused to smile again with the memory)...she was singing..."

         Ian watched Magbert's eyes glaze over again in thought, then shook his head and headed for the tavern.

         The owner knew Crystal and told Ian most readily (most people looked at Ian's 6'3" frame and told him anything) which room she was in. Ian went upstairs and knocked on the 3rd door on the left. There was no answer at first, so he tried again.

         "Yes?" came a pretty voice.

         "I've come to talk to you about your enchantment of my ally, Magbert," Ian said seriously.

         There was a silence, then the door opened. He couldn't remember seeing this singer/witch, but a tall, skinny hag of perhaps 70 with a wart on her nose was what he expected.

         Which is probably why he laughed enormously when little Crystal, not at all old, warty or even tall, peered up at him.

         She stared at him in confusion, at first, but a look of high affront slowly began to register.

        

         Magbert rushed up to Crystal's room, fearing the worst. Ian, his fighting partner and friend, was about to "save him" from the woman Magbert loved. With a man Ian's size, this might mean any number of things!

         He could hear Ian laughing before he'd even reached the hallway. "Woman, you have the honor sense of an Ellyl!" he was saying.

         "Screw my honor," she retorted, "you insulted me!"

         Magbert heard her sing an angry couple of notes, then suddenly Ian yelped, as if stung by a bee. "Hey, what the heck d'you do that for?" he demanded.

         Magbert put on an extra burst of speed and skidded into the room, not really wanting to know what she'd done. He found the two standing defensively near each other, Ian holding his cheek as if he'd been slapped, Crystal scowling up at him with her knuckles on her hips. "Are you alright, Ian?" he asked.

         "She spellsung a slap on me!" he said, looking slightly more amused than injured.

         "He came in here and insulted me!" said Crystal.

         "What exactly did he say, dearest?" Magbert asked, speaking in a smoothing-over tone.

         "He insinuated that I wasn't as important as he is because I'm shorter than him!" Crystal snapped.

         "I said she was a little thing and that I could probably lift the both of you without any trouble," shrugged Ian.

         "You see there?! He admits to it!" she screeched accusingly.

         "She is the funniest little thing," smirked Ian. "Can we keep her?"

         Crystal gasped in shock and was about to spellsing something stronger when Magbert put a hand over her mouth. "Ian," he said, giving him a meaningful glare, "you're not helping."

         Ian grinned.

         Crystal fumed.

         Magbert sighed.

         "Now, you're both friends of mine," he began, taking his hand away from Crystal's mouth. "I'd really hate to think you couldn't get along better than this."

         "I could if he apologized," sulked Crystal.

         "For what?" laughed Ian. "The truth?"

         Crystal turned on him with the force of many, but Magbert held her back. "Please, darling, don't fight over something so trivial. Ian tends to make this insensitive judgements when he doesn't know a woman."

         "Well, then he'd better learn to change himself around me!" she snapped. "Or I can personally give him an attitude adjustment."

         "You weren't around when he simultaneously hurled three big guys through a stained glass window, were you?"

         "Your point being?"

         "My point being I love you and I want to see you live," pleaded Magbert. "Have you no concept of overwhelming odds?"

         "Oh, gimme a little credit, Bert," said Ian, looking truly hurt. "I would not throw her through a plate glass window. I'd just keep her from doing anything."

         "And give me a little credit, too," Crystal added. "I could handle fighting him whether he can throw weaklings through windows or not."

         "Weaklings, huh?" said Ian, pushing Magbert out of the way to look at Crystal.

         "Yeah," said she, slowly enough to make it an insult. "Weaklings." A conspiratory grin spread across their faces as they both sensed the challenge in the air.

         "Crystal, Ian, please don't do this, I..." But Crystal was already rushing Ian, who stopped her in mid-rush, threw her to the bed in one swift motion and pinned her there. A quick song, and Ian's own force reversed itself on him and pushed him back to the wall.      Crystal leaped up and tried to tackle him blindly again, but as the effects of the song quickly wore off, Ian leaped off the wall and shoved her back to the bed with minimal force. This time, her singing didn't help, since he was using less force. She tried a few times to get up, even to go around him, only to be pushed back down. Finally, she sat down on the bed angrily trying to figure a way around him.

         "Give up?" he asked tauntingly.

         "Never!" she said, then backed up across the bed, singing as she did. He reached out to grab her leg, but was blinded by the light streaming from around her. He shielded himself from the glare and it slowly disappeared. When he could see again, Crystal was no where in sight and Magbert was chuckling silently.

         "What?" Ian asked, shrugging. He felt a sharp tug on his hair, then a vicious pinch on his arm and he dodged from his unseen enemy. Painful pinches and tugs plagued him for a few minutes until he finally said, "Listen, Crystal, anyone can beat a person when they're invisible. You're not proving anything."

         There was an fierce pinch on his cheek, then Crystal, now in sprite form, flew into his line of sight. "I am not invisible," she said smartly. "You're just too slow."

         "Well, if you're so fast, then stay where I can see you and fight me," said Ian.

         "I'm not into sporting chances," she replied with a smirk. "Give up?"

         Ian moved his left hand suddenly and Crystal, still watching it, whirred into rapid motion backwards...right into his right hand. "No," he smirked.

         She gasped indignantly from inside her prison. "That's not fair!"

         "It is too fair," he grinned. "You were watching me the whole time." Crystal squirmed to get free of his enormous grip for a few minutes, even going so far as to bite his hand, to no avail. "Give up?" he asked.

         "No," she answered defiantly, wriggling up between his thumb and forefinger. "I could grow back."

         "Not in this grip," he replied.

         "If I grew back, you wouldn't have a grip on me anymore," she said, feeling more secure in the idea as she considered it.

         "Okay," said Ian, "but if I hold you so tight you can't sing, you won't get that opportunity." He pinched her waist slightly and Crystal gasped.

         "Ian!" said Magbert, moving to stop him.

         "She's fine," said Ian, looking at her. "Or she will be. Give up?"

         "Okay, I give!" she gasped.

         "Good," he replied, opening his hand.

         She gasped in relief, then stood up on his hand and checked her wings. "Boy, are you lucky, buddy," she scowled at him. "These suckers are irreplaceable."

         "I wonder what would happen if I held those behind your back," Ian said.

         "The equivalent feeling of having your arms pinned behind your back," said she, shifting uncomfortably at the thought.

         "Really?" he said, reaching to try it. Crystal gasped in fear and made a beeline for the safety of Magbert's presence.

         "Bert, do something!" she squeaked in fear.

         "Hey, Ian, don't be threatening my woman," said Magbert, half-seriously. Ian laughed at this lame threat and Crystal scowled a little at him from behind Magbert's head, then burst into merry laughter herself. She spellsonged herself back to a relatively human height.

         "Does she know that you're a...?" began Ian and Magbert nodded. "Well, I think we should take her with us." Crystal frowned.

         "Ian, don't start..." Magbert began.

         "No, not like a pet or anything," he explained. "I was just kidding about that. I mean actually let her travel with us."

         "With you where?" asked Crystal.

         "We haven't decided yet," said Magbert. "Ian just likes to get up and move for the sake of moving. That's how we got here."

         "Actually, we got here over that stained glass window thing," Ian confessed.

         Magbert grimaced with the memory, then turned back to Crystal. "The idea does have merit, dearest," he said.

         "Yeah, if we bring you with us, he won't be mooning over lost love the whole trip," said Ian.

         "And you wouldn't have to keep that terrible enlarging spell," said Magbert. "I get rid of mine the minute we leave town. With Ian around, we get fairly minimal amounts of grief from the locals, anyway."

         "That would be nice," said Crystal. "Although I can take care of myself."

         "Oh, of course," said Ian, rolling his eyes.

         "Actually, with that singing...how powerful are your songs?" Magbert asked.

         "I don't know," she replied. "Not very, I don't think. I usually use them to entertain myself at full strength. When I sing with the enlarging spell, it takes a lot of the potency away."

         "Not bad," shrugged Ian. "You could be a lot stronger than you think."

         "Well?" Magbert asked hopefully. "Will you come with us?"

         "Well...okay, but every once in a while, you gotta let me sing and you can't laugh at me when I do," she replied.

         "Your singing is no laughing matter," said Magbert. "Besides, I would never laugh at anything you didn't want me to."

         "I would," offered Ian.

         "Y'see there?" Crystal said, pointing at him. "He's starting with me already, the twerp."

         "Twerp, huh?" said Ian, moving toward her with a grin.

         "Yeah," she said, squaring off with a grin. "Twerp."

         Magbert sighed.

         It was going to be a long trip.

 

Previous Next
Back To Alkin Forest
Home