Rocks fall. Everybody doesn’t die.


Sorry for yet another hiatus, but you see I lost my right hand in a tragic accident with a cheese grater, and since then I’ve been busy perfecting my one-handed skills in four separate martial arts as well getting a Master’s degree in, oh, let’s just say Advanced Awesomeness.... *blinks* Sorry, what just happened? ...Er, I think I was channelling Soulforger for a moment there...

When I left you at the end of last episode, Uruald the blue bird-spirit had just died a noble and tragic death and Flameroc had just teleported in, roaring.

Now Flammers and Cryl are busy having a rather one-sided magic duel. Flameroc shoots lightning-bolts out of his eyes. Luckily, Cryl has already put up magic shields, so nothing happens. The demon casts a variety of things, including fireballs, at him, but they keep bouncing off the shields. In between turns, Flameroc roars a lot and he and Cryl trade insults.

This goes on for a couple of pages. During a pause in the hostilities– no doubt while Flammers looks around for the dice– Cryl announces that the shields are about to go and that he must now awaken Jarral’s talent “to its full adult power”.

Archer, who, like all giant warriors, is thick as a brick, asks,

“A mere firebrand, against this enemy?”

While Cryl is trying to work out how to explain the plot in terms that even Archer will understand, they hear Mephtik squeaking,

“Flameroc! I pray you, spare some of them for me! One, at least, for me to play with!”

Flameroc, who by now has had it up to here with this limp-wristed idiot, snarls,

“Silence, fool, or I will feed you to your own creatures!”

Pay attention. What you just read was a Plot Point.

Cryl tells the other that he must now drop the shields so that he can reach Jarral’s mind with his Talent. It is, he says, “our only hope”.

“They’re going anyway,” Scythe snapped. “Do what you can, Cryl. But do it now!”

The others look up to see that Flameroc is working up to something REALLY special. A long list of similes describes how his eyes get brighter and brighter. They start off at “the painful white of a polar sun on new snow” and end at “a star blooming into the final convulsion of a nova”. Everyone is flinching, eyes screwed shut, except for our favourite blind man, who stands

alone, his black eyes shiny with reflections of the demon’s white fire, facing Flameroc with a defiant snarl.

Scythe. He’s just THAT awesome.

At the last possible instant before Flammers launches his extra-special attack and blasts them all to smithereens, Cryl drops the shields and orders Jarral,

“let your true Talent wake and function, in the full splendour of its power!”

The shock of hearing the Riddling Wizard say something that direct does the trick.

Jarral’s eyes snapped wide. His body stiffened, his hands clenched, his hair rippled as if trying to stand on end. And the next tumultous fragment of a second flung Mephtik’s throneroom into chaos and catastrophe.

(...)

something– some things– huge but invisible like mighty unseen giants, stormed into the chamber to hurl destruction and ruin before them on every side.

Winds howl through the throneroom, stuff catches fire, a mini-storm complete with clouds, thunder and lightning forms under the roof, the floor cracks, the walls crumble.

Yes, Jarral just called up the Elementals– and by gosh! these mindless forces of nature show what they think of Mephtik’s interior decoration scheme:

The wind tore the ghastly paintings and tapestries from the walls and shredded them– and as the fragments swirled to the floor, flames erupted from them.

Astonishing plot-twist, eh? Who’d have thought a simple orphaned peasant lad from a remote village that was destroyed by the Forces of Evil at the start of the book would turn out to be the Chosen One?

Of course, Cryl knew this all the time, but the wise wizard refused to tell anyone because... uh... because... I’ve got no idea, actually.

And how do our heroes fare?

...by some miracle, none of the falling pieces of masonry, none of the fire or water or lightning, had struck them.

Yeah, right. Have a barrel of SOMEHOW!™

Scythe, of course, is the first to recover.

The girls start picking themselves up. Jarral has blacked out, I suppose because of the strain of using his Chosen One Powers for the first time. That’s how it usually works, anyhow. We won’t hear any more from Jarral in this chapter.

Dodging lightning-bolts, Scythe heads for the terrace, where Mephtik was last seen.

On the way, he glances into the pit. All the spiders, scorpions, etc. are quite upset:

All were in a frenzy at the chaos around them, flailing and threshing, turning on one another,

Like they wouldn’t have been doing that anyway? It’s not as if these things normally live happily together in a state of brotherly love.

even biting themselves. And many of them in their panic struck again and again at the crumpled, blood-smeared thing that had been the Whiner.

Pay attention. What you just read was another Plot Point.

Scythe reaches the terrace.

To one side Scythe saw the huge wooden throne overturned and smouldering, with no sign of Mephtik.

Well, if I were Mephtik, you wouldn’t see me for dust, either. I mean, look what a fix the guy’s in. Not only are the heroes loose and after him, there is NO way his boss won’t blame him for the current debacle.

Flameroc is still around, because the presence of the Elementals has rendered him too weak to move.

Scythe, temporarily taking over from Archer as the group’s Captain Obvious, comments,

“It’s true. And the demons are weakened in their presence.”

The Evil Overlord comes to the rescue:

Then the hair lifted on Scythe’s neck as he felt the power that had arrived. Like a stream of unseen energy, that would make a man tremble with its coldness, and cower from its essence of sheer evil.

Scythe did neither of those things.

You hear that? Scythe is a REAL man! A man’s man– as the author has already pointed out about fifty times already. Eat your heart out, Soulforger!

He merely stood as always, cool and poised and watchful.

*facepalm*

The icy, unseen power seemed to expand before him. And then it was abruptly gone– and Flameroc had vanished with it.

I don’t envy Flameroc one bit. What I said goes for him too.

The Elementals continue whooping it up. There is more wind, more quakes, more lightning. Suddenly Mephtik appears. He has been hiding behind his throne, and is rather the worse for wear.

one whole side of his face scorched and blackened, the other side showing a manic eye and half an insane grin.

Not only has the Poisoner not had the sense to flee after all, but the thought of paying for the repairs (fantasy insurance doesn’t cover Acts of Chosen Ones) has sent him round the bend.

He’s babbling and waving the Tainted Blade around:

“Blade can kill,” Mephtik said. “Slow killing when the full moon rises soon now rises and die from the Blade slow die...”

Um... no. Mephtik, if you stick Scythe with the Tainted Blade now he won’t die for another month. Can’t you remember how your own Evil Magic Weapon works?

–Well, you’ve gone completely off the deep end, so I guess you have some excuse.

Mephtik goes to stab Scythe, only to be shot in the wrist by Archer, who has suddenly emerged out of a dust cloud. Scythe catches the Blade and yells to Archer to get Cryl and the kids out.

“I cannot find Cryl,” Archer shouted mournfully.

I quote this bit because it intrigues me. How does one go about shouting mournfully? I’m imagining her with a voice like a foghorn.

Meanwhile Mephtik is gibbering:

“Don’t hurt don’t hurt don’t hurt don’t hurt don’t hurt...”

Then the babble became a whimper as Scythe raised the stained point of the Blade towards the Poisoner’s face.

“I could use this on you, Mephtik,” he said in a voice thick with hatred. “When the moon rises you would then know the death you have brought to so many.”

So Scythe’s forgotten how it works too. Some sort of collective amnesia going on here, methinks.

Mephtik is so terrified he starts dribbling, as the author hammers the final nail into the coffin of the Poisoner’s alleged scariness. Once again the sheer brilliance of the characterization in this book has me in awe. So many works of fantasy strain our credulity by having the powerful, terrifying villain despatched by some ridiculously weak opponent. Douglas Hill avoids this by the masterstroke of having Mephtik as the bad guy. Personally, I have no problem whatever believing Mephtik could be owned by a kid and a blind man. Forget the Talents– I mean any kid and any blind man. Genius!

As it happens, Scythe– using his Brooding Anti-Hero privileges– was just taunting his helpless enemy. He has no intention of using the Blade on him. The Dark Lord, he reasons, might well teleport his minion out of there.

“I want to be sure you’re finished.”

Which is a dumb thing to say, because clearly he IS finished. We all know what happens to henchman who fail the Evil Overlord, and are stupid enough to run home and tell him about it, don’t we?

That’s right. They get iced, much to their surprise.

Anyway, if Scythe wants to remove all doubt, there’s no problem. He has a sword and know how to use it, so he’ll make a quick end to the Poisoner, right?

Wrong.

“I remember the demon’s threat to you, Poisoner,” he said coldly. “It seems a good idea. Go and seek your own kind, and see which of you is the more venomous.”

And with that, he throws Mephtik into the pit, which doesn’t have any railings. They never do. I don’t know why so many villains feel the need to situate these things in the middle of their thronerooms without including basic safety features, but it certainly makes things easier for the good guys.

Mephtik can no longer control his own creatures, since both he and they have gone crazy, so they turn on him. That’ll teach him.

The screech rose then, agonized and inhuman. But Scythe did not linger to watch.

Which is a relief, the way Scythe’s been acting lately. You know, if I were a fantasy character, I’d want to be a Brooding Anti-hero. They have so much more leeway than everyone else.

By now the Tower is on the verge of collapse– not that it seems to take much to bring these things down. I don’t know what firm the bad guys usually employ to contruct their Evil Fortresses, but if you ask me they’ve got shoddy workmanship and are using substandard materials.

Scythe has to make a desperate run for safety, dodging flames and lightning, struggling with gale-force winds and leaping chasms that open before his feet. He makes it, of course. He is Scythe, and he is Awesome.

But there he was nearly driven to his knees by the most deafening roar of all. Catching his balance, he saw behind him an immense weight of stone plunge earthshakingly down. It was the entire high vault of the Tower, in a final thunderous collapse, crashing down into a gigantic heap like a cairn on top of the pit where the Poisoner lay.

Vale Prince Mephtik. I don’t think any other character has ever been killed quite so thoroughly.

Let’s see:

First he was fried by the Chosen One. Then he was thrown into a pit. Then his own creatures attacked him. Finally, he was crushed in the wreckage of his Evil Fortress of Doom.

Actual cause of death?

Er... tell the truth, you’ve got me on that one. Let’s just say he died from eating a big bowl of Villain Demise Fruit Salad.


All quotes are taken from “Blade of the Poisoner”, copyright Douglas Hill 1987.