SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #16 - It's a Ring Thing

To any who might some day find and read these words, let it be known that Bremon, Chief Watchman of the Walled City, did record them, so that my story would not be lost upon my death. I have lived long and well and, though my grandfather would often tell me that there is still a hint of Elvish blood in our veins, I fear my end is near.

All know the story of the valiant defense before the Gates of the Walled City during the long winter of the Month of Darkness. Oft the bards have sung of the great deeds done on the plains before our gates, where the Tall Lady and the Short Prince did slay the vile Commander of the foes set against us by the Greatest of Enemies. Yet few have heard the story of the other great battle, which took place not on the plain, but on the northern expanse of the outermost wall. And not with a great host to bear witness, but rather just myself.

In those days I was but an apprentice Watchman, set to guard the most northern portion of the outermost wall. In truth, there was no north gate, the gate for that wall being set on the southern portion. The wall I guarded had been built very tall, the area was heavily populated, and quite possibly this wall was in the least need of a Watchman of any of the walls. Yet I was told that it was an honor to be a Watchman on that wall, so guard it I did. As the battle was on the other side of the city, I mostly watched for the great dark shapes that would fly over and terrorize the denizens of our city.

On that fateful day (which as the bards sing was dark as night) I was standing alertly at my post when I was awakened by screaming. Looking about, I saw that all the townspeople in the area were pointing at me. After several seconds I realized that they were instead pointing at something behind me.

I drew my sword as I turned. I saw what appeared to be a hole hewn in the very air itself. Great rays of light, in every color of the rainbow, streamed forth. Two dark forms came through this hole, which closed behind them. While I told my comrades somewhat later that I bravely stood my ground in the face of what I thought were agents of the Greatest of Enemies, in truth it simply did not occur to me to try to run.

The first being was tall, taller than I or any of the Lords or Ladies that I had known then or since. His skin was dark, a deep brown of a shade that I have never seen elsewhere. His hair was long, dark, and flowing. He wore clothing the likes of which I had likewise never seen: a loose tunic bearing the images of flowers of some kind, odd pants which barely reached his bony knees, and leather sandals of some sort over black kneesocks. Over his face he wore an odd half-helm that did little more than hide his eyes behind smoked glass.

I first took the second being as some sort of animal, until suddenly it stood on its hind legs and spoke to me. "Hold your hand, good knight. We mean you no harm."

"Speak for yourself, rat," spoke the other.

"Behave," chided the first. "I am known as Ralph, a weasel of fierce reputation but gentle nature. My tall and dark friend here is named Omegas, gruff of exterior but... Well, gruff inside as well. We have travelled to your realm quite unintentionally and will be leaving as soon as we figure out how."

"Bremon," I said, by way of an answer. "You have not been sent by the Greatest of Enemies? You are not on the side of the darkness? You do not serve the evil powers?"

"Oh, heavens no," answered Ralph. "I'm neutral good, myself."

"And I serve no one," added the one known as Omegas. He began to extoll the virtues of a pure neutral alignment, saving rolls, and class bonuses, using words and phrases that I did not understand.

Our discussion was cut short by the sound of a loud keening wail, or perhaps a wailing keen, from above. I dropped my sword and readied my bow. I chose my Green Arrow, a brightly-colored arrow given to me by my father on his deathbed. He had claimed that it had been passed down from generation to generation after having been given to one of our distant ancestors by the dwarven smiths of Duron himself. I doubted this, as he had never mentioned the arrow prior to his trip to the city Athlon just before my tenth birthday, and as the first time I had seen it there was a small price tag tied to the fletching.

A great dark shape flew above us, and a great sense of dread and fear did fall about us. All those present did cower and quake because of it, except for the new arrivals. Ralph, who had been smiling widely since his arrival, did allow his countenance to dim slightly, but only slightly. Omegas, however, breathed in the darkness as a gourmet might breathe in scent of a fine repast set before him.

As for myself, though I later told my companions who fled that I stood my ground and fired my arrow straight and true, it is the sad fact that my bow nearly fell from my lifeless fingers, and it is only by the greatest of coincidences that my arrow did fly toward the dark shapes above us. It struck home, and we heard a great cry which for a moment I thought had deafened me.

The dark shape and the mount it was riding fell. Oh, but had they only fallen beyond the Wall instead of on it! The mount did indeed, upon staggering to its feet, fall from the Wall to its death. The dark shape, however, gained its feet and stalked towards us.

"Hold, dark one! None may pass a Watchman of the Walled City!" I proclaimed. Or, at least, I tried. My voice instead came out resembly a small squeak, I fear.

From deep within darkness, a small reedy voice slithered out. "Fool! Die in the name of the Greatest of Enemies!" He raised a scaly hand toward me and I felt fear of the likes that I would not have thought possible even moments before. I believe it was at this time that I soiled my armor.

"I say," said Ralph as he moved between us. "Let us not be hasty. Just because you're on a mission to destroy all good in the world is no reason to be rude."

"Stay out of things that don't concern us," said Omegas as he grabbed at Ralph. "And look for us a way out of this mess."

Upon hearing Omegas speak, the dark being turned and seemed to notice him for the first time. He drew back the hood of his cloak, showing a dead face wearing a silver crown. "Omegas?" it asked.

"Dorkmug?" Omegas asked in return.

In seconds the two were hugging and slapping each other's backs as if they were old friends, which, I quickly learned, they were.

"Ralph, let me introduce an old friend of mine," said Omegas. "This is Dorkmug. We were frat brothers together way back when." They demonstrated some kind of bizarre twiddling of limbs which I took to be their secret handshake. At least, I hope it was a handshake.

"Glad to meet you," Ralph replied, though I noticed that he did not offer to shake hands.

"Likewise," said Dorkmug. "So, Omegas, what have you been doing with yourself these last few thousand years?"

"It's been a lot longer than that for me. Let's see. After I graduated from Immortal University, I bounced from job to job for a while until I caught the notice of the Big Guy. I served in Heaven for a few eternities, then served as a SAAL, or Satanic Agent At Large, for a short while, and then I went freelance. I'm currently working with a group of 'heroes' to recover an unimaginable source of power before it destroys reality as we know it. And you?"

Dorkmug chuckled. "Nothing quite so flashy, but then, you were always the flashy one of the group." They both shared a good laugh at what was obviously some private joke. "I graduated a couple of years after you left, then bounced around for a while until I stumbled into this reality. Lots of magic potential here, or at least there will be until Science kicks in. Anyway, there was this major evil dude making all these magic rings that he was going to rule the world with. I snuck in at the last minute and took the place of one of the mortal men he'd intended to give a ring to."

The dark being known as Dorkmug paused to hold forth his hand, and I did see on it a bright silver ring with a clear white stone.

"Wow!" said Ralph, blinking. "Is that a real magic ring?" Weaseloids were not much on creating magic rings, or any rings, or any jewelry at all come to think of it, but they were easily distracted by small shining things.

Dorkmug laughed again. "Not really, rodent. For the boss put so much of his power into the forging of all the other rings, and especially into the Singular Ring which we're looking for now, that he didn't have a whole lot left to put into this one, which he considered to be the least powerful of all the great rings. However, I was able to use some of my own power and some of the advanced technology I brought with me to get it to work anyway."

"Fascinating," admitted Ralph, stifling a yawn. "So, are you immortal like Omegas sometimes is?"

"Used to be. I had to permanently assume the form of a mortal man to get the ring to accept me, and then the ring turned me into a wraith, so now I'm immortal in a different way, or at least as long as I wear the ring. I plan to wait until the Greatest of Enemies defeats all the other powerful beings around here, then stab him in the back and take over."

Omegas grasped Dorkmug by the shoulder. "You say that ring of yours contains magic of this realm, power of our kind, and super-science of advanced technology? That sounds like just the thing to create a portal back to my own area of space-time. Oh, and Ralph, too, since the people I'm travelling with are kind of attached to him. Think you can do that? I need to get back in a hurry. What do you say?"

Dorkmug considered. "Sorry, old friend. No can do. The big evil boss guy is really keeping an eye on the Rings nowadays. If I use that much power, he's going to know something is up. It's a struggle sometimes just to keep him from knowing what I'm planning anyway, seeing as these rings were originally designed to keep our minds under his control. Maybe in a few centuries, when his guard is down and I take over. Say, why don't you stay here and join me? I could use somebody like you."

Omegas shook his head. "Dorkmug, as much as I like power and the idea of ruling entire worlds, I've got to get back or there won't be any worlds left to rule. I really must insist that you open that portal."

"I'm sorry, Omegas. I just can't do that."

Omegas pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree."

And that was when I saw that Omegas has picked up my discarded sword and was swinging it towards Dorkmug's head.

Dorkmug ducked just in time. He drew his own sword, which flickered as if painted with unholy red flames. I noticed that my sword was flickering blue, as was Omegas himself. Omegas swung again, and Dorkmug parried, sparks flying everywhere. Ralph and I both dropped to all fours and scurried for cover.

Omegas and Dorkmug seemed evenly matched, and their duel seemed to go on for hours, though looking back it was perhaps only a few minutes.

"So," said Dorkmug, his voice deepening and taking on an asthmatic rasp, "we will see at last which of us is the better swordsman. I have been practicing for ages, and you must remember that I got an A- in Archaic Weapons 101 back at IU."

"And you must remember," answered Omegas as he tried a particularly nasty set of cuts, "that I got an A+."

"I remember that you cheated on your final!" screamed Dorkmug loudly, parrying and backpedalling furiously. "Backing me into the bleachers like that, where you had those two guys you paid to grab me!"

"I didn't have to pay them!" screamed Omegas back. "They did it for free because they didn't like you. Nobody liked you!"

"Ouch," said Dorkmug with some great theater. "Thou doth cut me. Figuratively speaking, of course. You'll never get through my guard with that type of offense." He whacked a few times himself. "Why, Omegas, I do believe you're weakening."

Dorkmug did speak true, for with each blow he parried, Omegas did seem weaker, and the blue glow around him did flicker.

"And I seem to recall," said Dorkmug almost conversationally as he pressed the attack, "that your little rodent friend implied that you are not currently immortal. Running you through should be fun. And, for a change, permanent."

"Stupid weasel," I heard Omegas say as locked swords with Dorkmug and pushed him away with what appeared to be the last of his strength.

"I'll kill him next," Dorkmug said smoothly. "By the way, where did the little rodent go?"

"He's right behind you," sneered Omegas. "Ralph, grab him NOW!"

Dorkmug spun with great speed, his red blade leaving a fiery trail through the air, a huge slashing cut which would have cleaved Ralph and myself in twain...

...had we been standing behind Dorkmug ready to grab him, instead of cowering under a bench.

Dorkmug stood there in confusion for a split second, just long enough for Omegas to run him through from behind. Dorkmug fell foward, his body disolving into a dark mist, along with my sword.

A small ring lay on the ground where he had fallen.

Omegas picked up the Least Great Ring and tried it on. "Cast aluminum beer can pull tab with a cubit zirconia stone," he said.

"It doesn't matter what it's made of as long as it gets us out of here," said Ralph, always practical. "Give it a try."

Omegas tried, but no matter how he concentrated, the Ring would not respond to his will. He and Ralph spoke of conflicting energies and different evils cancelling each other out and degrees of immortality and other matters which I did not comprehend. In the end, it was decided that Omegas could only make use of the Ring if he assumed a permanently mortal form, at which time the darkness of the Greatest of Enemies would quite likely consume his own.

Only a being of great willpower and great cheer could wield the ring, which put me right out of the running.

Ralph tried the ring. "It seems as if there's come great darkness pressing on my mind. I think I can resist it but... Wait, it's gone. Distracted, I think, somehow." He grinned as brightly as ever.

I learned later that this was the exact moment that the vile Commander of the forces arrayed against us by the Greatest of Enemies was slain on the plains before the main gate.

Omegas explained something called 'wormhole mechanics' and the working of this 'portal' they had mentioned to Ralph, who was able to use the ring to open one. They stepped through and were never seen or heard from again in our land.

In the tales of the great battles in the days that followed, no one sings of how one of the minions of the Greatest of Enemies was missing, or that one of the many of the Great Rings was unaccounted for. But I, Bremon, Chief Watchman of the Walled City, did see what happened to it. I know that was won by the dark one named Omegas, and that it is worn on the paw of the great weasel lord named Ralph.

And you who didst read these words knows it as well.

Will Ralph and Omegas get back to the HMS Golden Lance?
What happened to Time Agent 357 and Diana Dark? Just what is the secret ingredient in the special sauce?

For the answers to the great questions of life, the universe, and everything, read a different book. For more mindless drivel, tune in to the next exciting episode of... SFSTORY!

Copyright 2006 by Troy H. Cheek. Free to read, but please reprint only with permission.