The Dungeon Master began.
Torreb tracks the dragonhorse midge across the cloud blown sky. He swipes with his net, as if it were a scythe. The midge skitters away. Escapes the net’s sharp edge.
The inside of Torreb’s long black jacket was lined with thin glass vials. Each contained a different insect. There were the ones with acidic brine flies. There were glow worms and swamp hooters. There were shrimp fleas and giant-winged pig roaches. There were vials of skunk beetles and brain weevils and rooters and sting soakers and bloaters and sand motors and all sorts of tiny hornets and red floret lice and ant life and tubes of luminescent moon flies and jars of saw and axe and sword flies.
Torreb curses and the dragonhorse midge disappears from view.
The Dungeon Master, looking down on the forest scene, paused. He rolled a dice behind a screen, flipped a page or two, looked something up. And continued.
But as the midge disappeared, something else appeared before Torreb: a small child. King Ramsay’s child. It was Prince Rufus. He held a large dagger as he jumped over fallen logs or skirted around trees or bushes and waved it before him, slashing branches and stems and shoots that blocked his wild and frantic movements. The child, his attention consumed with heroic deeds and bugbears and crypt crawling and fantasies of the like, did not see Torreb. Prince Rufus rushed past Torreb, who turned and called “Be careful with that sword, young man. You nearly thrashed me with it.”
His voice startles Rufus, who, in mid-gallop, turned to face this forest horror, and…
The Dungeon Master rolled a die.
And Prince Rufus tumbled to the ground, taking five fall damage.
Torreb went to the child. His knee was scraped and from the ground held up the dagger. It was an old one, Torreb saw, and did not look particularly sharp.
“Hold on, hold on,” said Torreb, his hands raised. “I’m sorry to have spooked you. I assure you I meant only to help. Plus, you nearly ran me through with that thing.”
The Prince remained tight-lipped.
“Let me show you something,” he said, and Torreb pulled out a vial from his pocket. A small red beetle was inside.
“You’re bleeding,” he continued. “Let me help you. This beetle is one I’d just captured. And they have the remarkable abilities to heal cuts and wounds and abrasions, much like those I unfortunately and inadvertently just caused you. Again, my apologies for scaring you.”
Torreb opened the vial and took the beetle into his hands and squeezed it dead. A thick red liquid seeped from his fingers.
“There are others coming,” warned the Prince.
“Others?”
“My guardians. The Prince’s guard.”
Torreb looked around and listened.
The Dungeon Master rolled.
“If they are, they must be far behind you. You are quite the fast runner, you know. I can see why they would not be able to keep up. Here, let me heal your injuries.”
Torreb approached the child and smeared the red paste onto the Prince’s leg.
“There. All set. Right as rain.”
The beetle’s blood immediately recovered…
The Dungeon Master rolled again.
Recovered 6 hit points.
“That’s amazing,” said the Prince as he wiped his knee. “I’m completely healed. Do you have any more? of the beetles? I’m supposed to fight the Graylock ghost and he’s somewhere in these woods. These are my woods, you know. My father’s. I’m a Prince.”
“Yes, yes – I certainly know who you are. You are Prince Rufus Ramsay and these woods – your woods – are called the Graylock Woods. Have you been learning about Frederic Graylock?”
“I’ve read every story about him!”
“Every story?”
“Well, one story. My tutor gave it to me. Cen Rathgart is his name. He has a lot of books that he makes me read. It’s called The Curse of Graylock.”
“I know that story well.”
“And that’s why I need another of those beetles. I’m going to solve the curse!”
“Many others have tried. Many others have failed, too.”
• • •
To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
• • •
Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
