Witch Clan: Warriors! by John Stormm (good book club books txt) 📕

Johnny nearly fell off the examining table rocking with laughter at Uncle Milty’s new jokes. Their sessions together were full of old Vaudeville memorabilia and favorite comic routines from home and a lot of instructions about how the lines were delivered. It was old hat to Johnny, who never tired of them, but it was all new to Logres and Examiner Berle was planning on lacing a few of these jokes into the lecture he was about to give at a symposium hosted in New Cardiff.

“Many people will tell a joke during a speech in our world,” Johnny said. “They call them ‘ice breakers’ and it helps get their attention. It keeps them from falling asleep because they want to listen for what happens in the rest of the talk.”

“Being as the lecture is on what we’ve learned so far about our parallel worlds,” the examiner mused aloud, “I’ll have to do something to stretch it out a bit and add to my honorarium. It would be fair to say that this style of humor is a part of our cultural differences and I’d like to measure its effect on an audience in our own world for compatibility.”

“Well, as we say in show biz,” Johnny mimicked, “Break a leg.”

“Whose?” Uncle Milty asked, puzzled about the admonition.

“Yours,” Johnny replied, giggling.

“But I thought we were friends,” Milty returned.

“We are,” Johnny explained, “It’s just that in show business, many of them believe it will jinx their show if you wish them good luck. So they do the opposite and say to ‘break a leg’.”

“Oh.” Milty said. “By all means, break the legs. Do you think they will like me?”

“Millions of Atlanteans couldn’t be wrong,” Johnny offered. “I think they’ll have to reserve a week night here to name you after.”

“’Catch me on the scrybox this week?” Milty asked.

“Get used to it,” Johnny said. “You were made for each other.”

* * *

The symposium was the usual collection of stuffed shirts and evening finery one would expect in a meeting of eminent scientists and doctors, no matter what they were called in any plane. Emma was bringing in the Logren version of popcorn to the men folk in the living room just as Examiner Berle was being called to the podium.

“Good evening ladies, gentlemen and distinguished guests,” Uncle Milty addressed the audience with his quirky smile. “I flew all the way from Ivory City, to attend this symposium and I have to tell you that my arms are very tired.” He mimicked flapping his arms before a crowd stunned to silence.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Milty adlibbed, “It wasn’t easy. All the ducks were flying the other way, and if you think they’re messy when they fly overhead…” he rolled his eyes. Laughter began breaking out in fits among the tables. Clearly, this wasn’t the customary beginning to a scientific lecture, but it was beginning to work.


“He’s making me homesick,” Emma commented above the sound of laughter coming from the scrybox.

“Now he looks like the Milton Berle I remember on TV,” Little Fox said, slapping his thigh.

“Wait until you catch his big finish,” Johnny bragged. “I helped him with that one.”

The lecture went on with a good many jokes laced in with actual scientific commentary concerning the study of otherworld cultures and quips of conversations with the Atlantean test subjects.

“So I asked the boy,” the examiner went on, “how did his grandfather’s second best tracking dog smell, with no nose to speak of. Just awful, he replied. Which goes to show you that dogs are pretty much the same every where you go. Thank you all. You‘ve been a wonderful audience. Good night.”

Those in the audience who could stop whooping and gasping for air long enough to stand arose to give Uncle Milty a roaring standing ovation. The humble examiner gave bows of gratitude as the credits rolled across the screen. Uncle Milty’s experiment in cross worlds humor was a hilarious success.

* * *

“I’m not liking how popular our guests are becoming,” Rumsdon commented, turning off the scrybox.

“Indeed.” Dauntless replied, “Every time one of them says or does something different, it becomes the latest rage all over Logres. The only good thing I can say that comes from all of this is that now we’ll have to increase their security and that will help us keep a better eye on them.”

“Just awful,” Rumsdon said, choking back a laugh.

“Stop that,” Dauntless insisted. “You’ll have me weeping again.”

“We can’t have that, now can we,” Rumsdon said. “Perhaps I should share with you some of my plans for the Solstice Celebration.”

“It’ll have to be really good to counter all of this,” Dauntless pointed out.

“Not good, precisely,” Rumsdon corrected him, “but evil. Suppose as the Matriarch and her boy lead the ceremony, something terribly evil manifests and brings great tragedy on the whole thing before millions of viewers? It took me a while to get another copy of the missing Tome, but we can set up our spell and trigger the conjuration during the rites and everyone will assume it’s a part of their otherworld magick and hold them responsible. Even if many assume it’s just an accident, no one will be so quick to ever trust them again. There will always be that nagging element of doubt.”

“But how will we cast a spell like that when everyone will be expected to follow suit with the Matriarch?” Dauntless asked.

“It’s simple,” Rumsdon explained, “We set up our spell in it’s near entirety just prior to the ceremony. Then when her ceremony is at its height, we concentrate and invoke the demon with a minimum of any revealing gestures. It will appear as though she had done it herself and before millions of witnesses.”

“If we play this right,” Dauntless said, rubbing his hands with enthusiasm, “We can bring it down together and then squeeze extra funding for the Pentacle and more encompassing powers to deal with such forms of future terrors. We can also diplomatically negate her influence by insisting it all was just an accident and that she really didn‘t know what she was doing. We can‘t lose.”

“Don’t be too quick to celebrate,” Rumsdon admonished. “We’ll have to be extra sharp to maintain our focus on our own agenda during that celebration or we’ll botch it up and then nothing much will come of our efforts. We have a lot riding on this.”

“What could go wrong?” Dauntless asked. “It’s not as though either of us are novices. The Atlanteans may impress the ignorant populace, but I’m certain the best of them couldn’t stand toe to toe with a good Logren wizard.”

“And what if all their soldiers fight as well as that pipsqueak bodyguard of hers?” Rumsdon added. “Keep your prejudices aside, no matter how apt they may be and remember that we don’t want to start a war with the Atlanteans. We want an alliance with another human plane as we have no idea of how many non-humans we may be taking on in Operation Cosmic Storm. If we bit off more than we could chew, we’ll need a back-up plan and the Atlanteans fit nicely into this. But we also don’t want them so popular that they start calling the shots for us. A bit of public humility is all we want from this. Let this be the most precise wizardry we have ever performed and it will be our names holding such reverence in the public eye. Are you with me?”

“Of course,” Dauntless replied. “Let me see that Tome of yours. I want to get an idea of what will be required of us to pull this off.”

“Indeed,” Rumsdon said, pulling the Tome out of a drawer. “A pair of well focused, master warlocks can be a power that few could ever hope to reckon with.”

Through the twisted and tainted dark forest trail of Annwn, the ebon scaled dragon followed close on the heels of the unicorn colt that appeared to be dancing on the mist that covered the ground. Into the open glade the colt led them. The Vough’s Black Tower, Dun Cruachan, loomed over the chasm off to their left. Emma knew the colt was heading for the edge of the bottomless abyss that was hidden from their view by the low lying fog. It was apparent to her that the unicorn was about to sacrifice itself to drop the wingless