Final - Prof. Tarma Amelia Black
The story is about gladiators. It takes place in a city-state in a warlike dukedom. The critical element of the story is someone visiting a doctor.
The Boy Who Needed Magic
"I'm gonna die."
"I'm gonna die."
"I'm gonna be SO dead ...."
The gloomy thoughts were so loud that they permeated the air around Darvin. Little puffy bits of purple and blue and pink and (oddly) lime-green floated around his head like a miasmic cloud, occasionally broken up by a thick blackness of utter despair.
"I wish you'd shut up" said the cat sitting calmly at his feet, while she was licking clean her paws. "It's really difficult to be attempting to get some sort of viable answer for you when you clog up the possibilities with doom and gloom and dying. Why don't you think of something cheerful for a change?"
"Right. Cheerful. Right. Okay. I'm gonna die but I'll die a really clean and quick and painless death. How's that?" the young man said, with a grimace and a forlorn tear trickling down his scruffy face. "How in the HELL am I supposed to trot into the stadium and cheerfully stand there looking stupid and have some huge big muscle-bound dunderhead smash me into smithereens?"
"You could always run away ..." suggested the cat, delicately cleaning her whiskers now. "You could see if your father would let you use his sword ..."
"My father, the Exchequer for the Dukedom of His Most Royalness Winifred of Otterawn? Lend me his sword just so I could save my life? You might as well say that he would lend me his tailor who sews his clothes or his cook who cooks his foods. It will never happen.
"I need help. I need a LOT of help, Cat. I don't want to die, and as it looks, I can circle that date on my calendar and schedule a shroud."
The cat, whose name 'was' Cat, sat up. "A quest? We could go on a quest of some kind. We do happen to live in a country that believes in quests and finding things that are unfindable. Stuff like that."
Darvin's mouth twisted in a semi-smile. "I suppose there are worse things I could do during the last week of my life than go on a quest. Who knows, maybe I'll meet with a princess, well, someone nice anyway, and ..... yeah. I could at least die happy."
The cat grinned at him, showing all her sharp teeth. "You keep thinking that way, buddy. Go get your back-pack and we'll go for a walk."
Darvin thus went to his rooms and pulled out his battered backpack. He stuffed it full of socks and chocolate and pizza and a couple of changes of clothes. Then he went around to find his father.
"Cat and me, we're going on a quest" he said, quietly.
His father, who really did love his son, even if he wouldn't share his magical sword with Darvin (but that was because it wasn't really a magical sword at all and was so dull it couldn't even cut butter but he didn't want to admit to it because the lie had been in existence for decades -- a worthless sword passed on from generation to generation and no one wanted to admit that this so-called valuable bit of magicness was, in fact, a dud, and so when father passed it on to son, that was the *secret* of its use that was passed on with it), looked up smiling.
"I hope that you and Cat are successful, my son" he said. Internally he was cheering but his face remained stern. "Yes, I hope that you are very successful."
Darvin waited for the rest but it appeared his father wasn't going to say it.
"And yes, I know I must be back in a week's time to go to the stadium."
"Yes. Good hunting" was his father's only reply.
Darvin nodded his head and left the room. He picked up his backpack, which he had left by the front doors, and met Cat outside.
"Father wished me 'Good hunting' " he told Cat, somewhat bemused. "I think he meant it, too."
"He did. Let's go ... " replied Cat, trotting off with tail held high to the main gates of Lierchham. Lierchham, the second largest city-state in Otterawn, had the distinction of being large enough there were four entries into the inner city. But when a person referred to the main gates, they meant the ones that were by the river, where traffic was of many kinds -- foot, horseback, boat, carriage. Various and sundry other modes of transportation were used
but those were the main ones which brought people to LIerchham.
The guard at the gates checked the roles. He noted the gladiator names for the upcoming weeks and glanced at Darvin.
"You know ...."
"Yeah, yeah" replied Darvin. "I gotta be back by a week, whether I'm successful or not in finding something to fight with."
The guard nodded. "Yes. Good luck."
The quest for a weapon of magic was a popular one for all those who had been selected, by draft, to fight in the stadium. So far no one had found anything worth while but that didn't stop folks from trying. The idea of a nasty death put all kinds of energy into the possibility that there might be a way to avert it.
"Thanks" said Darvin. With Cat, he stepped out the gates into the wilderness that was Otterawn.
"So, where do we go from here?" he said, after they had briskly walked out of sight of the guard's house and then sagged in dismay on the ground.
"No idea" replied Cat. "But I figure it's worth it to get out of the city, yeah?"
"Yeah ..."
* * *
The two of them wandered down the road for a few miles, and then saw a little shack off to the side of the road. Actually, it wasn't so much a shack as a little, a very very very little house. A tiny house, painted blue.
"That's odd" said Cat, sniffing the air delicately. "It smells like quarntem. I've not smelled quarntem in at least 30 years, well maybe 40. I wonder ...."
The cat glanced around, ears twitching and whiskers fluttering.
Then she leapt straight up into the air, yowling so loudly that Darvin yelled in alarm and spun around trying to see what she had seen. There was nothing there ... no, wait, Out of the woods strolled an oddly dressed man. This man wore what appeared to be long knickers and a tight shirt of the same material over another shirt that was white or pale coloured.
"Doctor!" yowled the cat. "You are here!"
The man came over to Darvin and Cat, smiling gently.
"What? What?" he said, laughing lightly. "I told you I'd return."
"You told me that 30 years ago" the cat hissed, flexing long claws in and out. "You said you were just going to get me some catnip, and you'd be right back!"
"Excuse me, please, but who are you?" asked Darvin, glancing, bewildered, at Cat and this strange man.
"Oh, I'm The Doctor" said The Doctor. "Cat and I are old friends ... and you are?"
"I'm sorry, I'm Darvin" Darvin replied, blushing a little bit. He didn't know why he felt so inclined to talk with this total stranger but he did. Maybe it was the extreme joy that Cat had exhibited when first seeing the stranger. Maybe it was that he was going to die in a week and didn't care very much any more about conventions that said you had to know a person for weeks or months before saying anything of importance to them. "I'm going to die in a week."
"You are? That seems a little drastic, doesn't it?" said The Doctor, calmly.
"They have this strange pass-time" Cat said, "of sending the sons and daughters the populace to the arena to be killed by A MACHINE THAT APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE about 30 years ago. A machine that oddly enough has the look and appearance of a large man. This machine, this 'man', said he wouldn't kill off the populace if the people would send him a ... trifle to toy with once every year."
"Oh. Er. Goliath did show up?" The Doctor said, stroking his forehead for a moment, apparently in deep thought.
"Yes."
"Oh."
Darvin was watching the two, and finally gathered his nerve to say "You two know each other. Do you know what is going on here?"
"You could say that, yes" the Cat and The Doctor, said simultaneously.
"Is there any way that this Goliath could be... well ... killed?" Darvin said, his eyes lighting up with hope.
The Doctor, who had been silently berating himself for having been gone for 30 years instead of 30 minutes (but it wasn't his fault, really, because the time switch of his magical box was a little eccentric) smiled brightly.
"Yes" he shouted and dashed toward the box. Flinging open the door, he ran inside and then ran back out within a few minutes. (Darvin was wondering just HOW could a person run so rapidly into such a small space without crashing into the opposite wall.)
"Okay, Darvin, you do this. Take this to the arena next week. See the arrow? Aim the arrow at Goliath. Then push the red button. Drop to the ground, because he will explode but you shouldn't get hurt by the pieces. Be sure you are at least 30 feet or 40 would be better, away from him."
Darvin took the 'thing' from The Doctor and eyed it curiously. Then he smiled. "It's magic?"
"Yes, it's magic."
"Cool. A quest, a magic cat, a magic box, a very strange helpful stranger and something that will defeat the monster. Thanks."
He had studied the legends as much as anyone whose life might be imperiled by the draft. The famous seer Cassandra had said (before she was said to have been spirited away by a strange man with a very very
very long scarf and a bunch of curly hair):
"The ways of old
are very strange.
And newer times
are stranger.
Watch for oddness
a magic cat
a blue box
a small stick
a strange man
who says he is
a Physician.
Then duck."
Darvin sighed happily. "Will you be around in a week? I'd like to come back and talk with you ...."
The Doctor smiled, and looked at Cat. "That's the least I could do."
And so it was.
The Boy Who Needed Magic
"I'm gonna die."
"I'm gonna die."
"I'm gonna be SO dead ...."
The gloomy thoughts were so loud that they permeated the air around Darvin. Little puffy bits of purple and blue and pink and (oddly) lime-green floated around his head like a miasmic cloud, occasionally broken up by a thick blackness of utter despair.
"I wish you'd shut up" said the cat sitting calmly at his feet, while she was licking clean her paws. "It's really difficult to be attempting to get some sort of viable answer for you when you clog up the possibilities with doom and gloom and dying. Why don't you think of something cheerful for a change?"
"Right. Cheerful. Right. Okay. I'm gonna die but I'll die a really clean and quick and painless death. How's that?" the young man said, with a grimace and a forlorn tear trickling down his scruffy face. "How in the HELL am I supposed to trot into the stadium and cheerfully stand there looking stupid and have some huge big muscle-bound dunderhead smash me into smithereens?"
"You could always run away ..." suggested the cat, delicately cleaning her whiskers now. "You could see if your father would let you use his sword ..."
"My father, the Exchequer for the Dukedom of His Most Royalness Winifred of Otterawn? Lend me his sword just so I could save my life? You might as well say that he would lend me his tailor who sews his clothes or his cook who cooks his foods. It will never happen.
"I need help. I need a LOT of help, Cat. I don't want to die, and as it looks, I can circle that date on my calendar and schedule a shroud."
The cat, whose name 'was' Cat, sat up. "A quest? We could go on a quest of some kind. We do happen to live in a country that believes in quests and finding things that are unfindable. Stuff like that."
Darvin's mouth twisted in a semi-smile. "I suppose there are worse things I could do during the last week of my life than go on a quest. Who knows, maybe I'll meet with a princess, well, someone nice anyway, and ..... yeah. I could at least die happy."
The cat grinned at him, showing all her sharp teeth. "You keep thinking that way, buddy. Go get your back-pack and we'll go for a walk."
Darvin thus went to his rooms and pulled out his battered backpack. He stuffed it full of socks and chocolate and pizza and a couple of changes of clothes. Then he went around to find his father.
"Cat and me, we're going on a quest" he said, quietly.
His father, who really did love his son, even if he wouldn't share his magical sword with Darvin (but that was because it wasn't really a magical sword at all and was so dull it couldn't even cut butter but he didn't want to admit to it because the lie had been in existence for decades -- a worthless sword passed on from generation to generation and no one wanted to admit that this so-called valuable bit of magicness was, in fact, a dud, and so when father passed it on to son, that was the *secret* of its use that was passed on with it), looked up smiling.
"I hope that you and Cat are successful, my son" he said. Internally he was cheering but his face remained stern. "Yes, I hope that you are very successful."
Darvin waited for the rest but it appeared his father wasn't going to say it.
"And yes, I know I must be back in a week's time to go to the stadium."
"Yes. Good hunting" was his father's only reply.
Darvin nodded his head and left the room. He picked up his backpack, which he had left by the front doors, and met Cat outside.
"Father wished me 'Good hunting' " he told Cat, somewhat bemused. "I think he meant it, too."
"He did. Let's go ... " replied Cat, trotting off with tail held high to the main gates of Lierchham. Lierchham, the second largest city-state in Otterawn, had the distinction of being large enough there were four entries into the inner city. But when a person referred to the main gates, they meant the ones that were by the river, where traffic was of many kinds -- foot, horseback, boat, carriage. Various and sundry other modes of transportation were used
but those were the main ones which brought people to LIerchham.
The guard at the gates checked the roles. He noted the gladiator names for the upcoming weeks and glanced at Darvin.
"You know ...."
"Yeah, yeah" replied Darvin. "I gotta be back by a week, whether I'm successful or not in finding something to fight with."
The guard nodded. "Yes. Good luck."
The quest for a weapon of magic was a popular one for all those who had been selected, by draft, to fight in the stadium. So far no one had found anything worth while but that didn't stop folks from trying. The idea of a nasty death put all kinds of energy into the possibility that there might be a way to avert it.
"Thanks" said Darvin. With Cat, he stepped out the gates into the wilderness that was Otterawn.
"So, where do we go from here?" he said, after they had briskly walked out of sight of the guard's house and then sagged in dismay on the ground.
"No idea" replied Cat. "But I figure it's worth it to get out of the city, yeah?"
"Yeah ..."
* * *
The two of them wandered down the road for a few miles, and then saw a little shack off to the side of the road. Actually, it wasn't so much a shack as a little, a very very very little house. A tiny house, painted blue.
"That's odd" said Cat, sniffing the air delicately. "It smells like quarntem. I've not smelled quarntem in at least 30 years, well maybe 40. I wonder ...."
The cat glanced around, ears twitching and whiskers fluttering.
Then she leapt straight up into the air, yowling so loudly that Darvin yelled in alarm and spun around trying to see what she had seen. There was nothing there ... no, wait, Out of the woods strolled an oddly dressed man. This man wore what appeared to be long knickers and a tight shirt of the same material over another shirt that was white or pale coloured.
"Doctor!" yowled the cat. "You are here!"
The man came over to Darvin and Cat, smiling gently.
"What? What?" he said, laughing lightly. "I told you I'd return."
"You told me that 30 years ago" the cat hissed, flexing long claws in and out. "You said you were just going to get me some catnip, and you'd be right back!"
"Excuse me, please, but who are you?" asked Darvin, glancing, bewildered, at Cat and this strange man.
"Oh, I'm The Doctor" said The Doctor. "Cat and I are old friends ... and you are?"
"I'm sorry, I'm Darvin" Darvin replied, blushing a little bit. He didn't know why he felt so inclined to talk with this total stranger but he did. Maybe it was the extreme joy that Cat had exhibited when first seeing the stranger. Maybe it was that he was going to die in a week and didn't care very much any more about conventions that said you had to know a person for weeks or months before saying anything of importance to them. "I'm going to die in a week."
"You are? That seems a little drastic, doesn't it?" said The Doctor, calmly.
"They have this strange pass-time" Cat said, "of sending the sons and daughters the populace to the arena to be killed by A MACHINE THAT APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE about 30 years ago. A machine that oddly enough has the look and appearance of a large man. This machine, this 'man', said he wouldn't kill off the populace if the people would send him a ... trifle to toy with once every year."
"Oh. Er. Goliath did show up?" The Doctor said, stroking his forehead for a moment, apparently in deep thought.
"Yes."
"Oh."
Darvin was watching the two, and finally gathered his nerve to say "You two know each other. Do you know what is going on here?"
"You could say that, yes" the Cat and The Doctor, said simultaneously.
"Is there any way that this Goliath could be... well ... killed?" Darvin said, his eyes lighting up with hope.
The Doctor, who had been silently berating himself for having been gone for 30 years instead of 30 minutes (but it wasn't his fault, really, because the time switch of his magical box was a little eccentric) smiled brightly.
"Yes" he shouted and dashed toward the box. Flinging open the door, he ran inside and then ran back out within a few minutes. (Darvin was wondering just HOW could a person run so rapidly into such a small space without crashing into the opposite wall.)
"Okay, Darvin, you do this. Take this to the arena next week. See the arrow? Aim the arrow at Goliath. Then push the red button. Drop to the ground, because he will explode but you shouldn't get hurt by the pieces. Be sure you are at least 30 feet or 40 would be better, away from him."
Darvin took the 'thing' from The Doctor and eyed it curiously. Then he smiled. "It's magic?"
"Yes, it's magic."
"Cool. A quest, a magic cat, a magic box, a very strange helpful stranger and something that will defeat the monster. Thanks."
He had studied the legends as much as anyone whose life might be imperiled by the draft. The famous seer Cassandra had said (before she was said to have been spirited away by a strange man with a very very
very long scarf and a bunch of curly hair):
"The ways of old
are very strange.
And newer times
are stranger.
Watch for oddness
a magic cat
a blue box
a small stick
a strange man
who says he is
a Physician.
Then duck."
Darvin sighed happily. "Will you be around in a week? I'd like to come back and talk with you ...."
The Doctor smiled, and looked at Cat. "That's the least I could do."
And so it was.