Zillo the Incompetent by A J Cole (no david read aloud .TXT) 📕

Plunk. The goblet, made of some cheap metal, didn’t have a nice ring when thumped down on a table. Zillo didn’t care. He needed a drink, by golly, and he was bloody well going to have one! Placing one hand over the top of the vessel, he scratched himself in a tender place with the other, cleared his throat, and said, “Goblet of Eternal Ale thou shalt be. Fill thyself to the brim for me!”

A rumbling came from somewhere inside the goblet and suddenly it was gone, replaced by a massive turkey that promptly began peeing on the desk. The smell of the pee identified it as ale. Zillo passed out.

“…this time? I can’t believe it!”

Someone was shouting, and it woke Zillo from his stupor. He opened one eye and realized he was staring at a pair of shoes. What had happened? Why was he lying prone on the floor?

The shouting continued, the words now almost exclusively vile.

Zillo raised himself to his elbows. What was that odd feeling…ah. He was wet. Soaking, in fact, and smelling of ale.

“Well?” The Head Wizard, Farbo the Fantastic, was glaring down at him.

Normally, Farbo had to glare up at Zillo who, despite being the most incompetent wizard who had ever lived, was tall, well-built, and not bad to look at.

Appreciating that Farbo’s position of advantage was making him less intimidating than usual, Zillo stayed where he was out of respect. “I wanted to make a Goblet of Eternal Ale.” He tried to shrug, but discovered that doing so while being propped up by one’s forearms was all but impossible.

“A Goblet of…you idiot! Fool! You managed instead to make a Gobbler of Eternal Ale! We’ll have this damn turkey peeing ale all over the tower for the rest of its foul days!”

“Its ‘fowl’ days? Good one, sir.”

“That was not a pun, you bag of crackers! Look at this place – it’s nearly flooded already! I want you to take this thing to the butcher’s and have it destroyed, you hear?”

“Very well, but wouldn’t it make more sense to lease it to the owner of the tavern? He’d have a constant source of ale, and could pay the Guild a monthly donation for its use. No one would have to know the ale was coming from an orifice on the underside of a turkey, not if he kept it in a back room or something.”

Farbo began to reply, but stopped, pursed his lips, and began stroking his chin between his bony thumb and forefinger, eyes narrowed. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. Sometimes you amaze me, Zillo.” He glanced over at the turkey, still perched on the desk, gobbling with what sounded like satisfaction as it continued to release a steady stream of yellow that wasn’t what it looked like.

Zillo felt this was a good opportunity to pick himself up, so he got to his feet, wrung out the hem of his robe, and went to the desk. “Would you like me to go have a chat with Clack?” He was referring to the tavern owner.

“Hmm. Yes, that would be good.” Farbo took a deep breath. “I’ll go see the scribe and get a contract drawn up. If Clack is fine with the arrangement, you can deliver the turkey and the contract to him right away.”

“I don’t know – he’ll probably want to see the turkey first.”

“Yes, makes sense. Very well. Grab the thing and go.”

“Wait a moment.” Zillo sloshed to the far side of the room, extracted a number of miscellaneous items from a medium-sized barrel, and brought it to the desk. “I don’t want to make a mess in the tavern,” he said, picking up the turkey and placing it in the empty barrel. “Oof! Heavy fella, ain’tcha!”

The turkey blinked, made a more prolonged gobbling sound, and continued to pee.

“Better get him over there before that thing starts to overflow,” Farbo said, nodding at the barrel.

Within an hour, the tavern had a new, inexpensive source of ale that was guaranteed never to run out, the Guild had a new source of income, and Zillo had decided that offing himself was silly – he finally had something on which to concentrate his considerable powers: crafting magic items.

It was the best of decisions…it was the worst of decisions…and the consequences were, to say the least, disturbing.

1The detailed bit in the following paragraphs giving Zillo’s thoughts and feelings was taken from a page in the remains of his diary found under a huge dead spider by the same explorer who discovered the scroll, and which was much easier – if as disturbing – to translate.

“We aren’t entirely sure, but we think it’s because his mind is…scattered. He gets his thoughts tangled up, and they cause elements of the enchantment spells to get mixed together.” Farbo shrugged, having spent far too much time already trying to understand Zillo’s propensity for screwing up even the simplest spell. Explaining it to the rest of the wizards was proving every bit as difficult.

“What I’d like to know, is who the fool was who told him he should make enchanted items in the first place!” Wazoo, one of the oldest wizards in the Guild, glared around at the assemblage of Guild members, his eyes glittering out of a face that with the passage of time was being swallowed by eyebrows one could only described as epic. The few strands of hair clinging to his head were white, as were the aforementioned brows and a beard that at times defied gravity. No one knew how Wazoo managed to get around without crashing into things; those brows would have made an English sheepdog weep with envy. None of which was relevant, of course, nor did it deter him from glaring.

“I did,” said Farbo. “He was in desperate need of direction, of having something to do that would keep him from blowing up the Tower, or…or poisoning the food supply. So when he managed to enchant a goblet without anyone’s help, and then asked me if he could continue doing such things, I agreed. As he pointed out, it would give him a productive vocation, a way to focus his power instead of letting it escape at random moments, like so many ill-timed farts.”

“Oh, for – as if there was such a thing as a well-timed fart! You idiotic old poop!” Wazoo was in rare form, it appeared.

Another wizard, Charles the Charred (Zillo wasn’t the only one whose spells went awry), stood up and cleared his throat in a histrionic way that distracted Wazoo and Farbo seconds before they came to blows. “My dear fellows! Why are we discussing bodily functions? We must remember why we are here! This meeting has been called to solve the problem of Zillo’s magic items! Do any of you realize how many of the infernal things he’s made over the past two years?”

“More to the point,” said another whose name was too silly to repeat, “has anyone addressed the fact that these items cannot be destroyed?”

“I was coming to that.” Farbo shot a final look of annoyance at the old Wazoo before continuing. “It seems the most astonishing thing about these items is their complete indestructibility. We cannot remove the enchantment, nor can we destroy the items themselves. In fact, the first thing Zillo enchanted, and which I believe I’ve already mentioned, was a goblet. In his unique way, he turned it into a turkey – a gobbler, if you will – and for a while, it lived happily in a back room of the Wand and Saddle Tavern. That is, until the owner took ill for a couple of days, leaving no one to tend to the turkey, which continued to piss ale with abandon. I mean, the bird was literally abandoned by Clack while he was ill, and the entire tavern had to be closed down to replace the sodden flooring and baseboards.”

“Yes, yes, we all know about the drowning of the tavern. So what?”

“So what, Wazoo? You know ‘so what’!” Farbo shook a finger at the older wizard. “Clack, disgusted and frustrated, hauled the pissing beast to the butcher and had its head cut off, that’s what! And did it stop the bird from emptying its infernal bladder all over the place? No! In fact, the next day it had grown another head to replace the one removed, only this new one looked more like an eagle’s. The stupid creature probably had delusions of grandeur or something.”

Merdo the Mild, a wizard who rarely spoke, or who was rarely heard when he spoke because of his soft voice, came to the front of the room. “This is most fascinating. Most fascinating.” He nodded a few times while several wizards shouted, “What did you say?” at him.

“You’d better speak up, my friend,” Farbo told him as he helped the chubby wizard clamber onto a nearby chair.

An overweight wizard standing on a chair, his green satin robe stretched across his middle so tight it looked like someone had smeared paint on his belly, was without doubt an attention-getter. The wizardly clamor ceased except for one or two murmured questions like, “I wonder if he’s using magic to keep the chair from breaking,” and “Maybe he’ll topple off – now that would be entertaining!”

“Ahem.” Yes, Merdo enunciated the throat-clearing sound. He’d probably read it somewhere and never made the connection. “My dear fellows.”

“What?”

“My dear…I say, Farbo, is there an old wizard hat somewhere that I could mutilate?”

Getting what Merdo was, er, getting at, he asked the crowd to be patient for a few seconds, then conjured up one of his older hats and handed it over.

“Ah, lovely shade of puce, Farbo, I must say. Well – thank you.” Merdo tore off the brim, ripped the pointy end away with his teeth, and put the narrow end up to his mouth. “My dear fellows,” he said again, only this time his voice was amplified, if somewhat nasal, and all mutters ceased. Smiling, Merdo went on. “It has occurred to me that poor Zillo should be given a chance to make his questionable talents useful in a concrete way. As you know, the kingdom has recently come under threat by the disgruntled members of a northern ogre tribe…not sure why…but yes. So after learning of the extreme and mostly negative results of utilizing any of Zillo’s items, I thought, why not sell them to the king’s Weapons Master? Can you imagine how quickly a battle would be won should even a few of the enemy be touched by Zillo’s Wand of Heeling?”

“His what?! He made a wand that does something good?” Wazoo’s eyes bulged.

“No, no, you misunderstand. It’s a wand of…of…” Merdo lifted one foot and pointed to the heel of his boot. “Not ‘healing,’ as in making well, Wazoo. ‘Heeling’ as in new heels on a shoe!”

“How in the world would that help us in battle, unless the enemy has a shoe fetish, gets distracted by high-heels, and they call a truce? Besides, I don’t think ogres