It can happen here!

Edward Solomon

I wonder where the Door he used is around here?

No matter. It is time to start the beginning of the end here.

Wizard duels on Midworld are rare in the extreme. Have the feeling that by me issuing a challenge I've shocked Walter almost as badly as I had just a second ago! Guess that there is some kind of social custom between magic users on Midworld (every last one a witch or warlock I gathered from the King series). . . .that or . . . .

"But white magery is extinct!" I here him whisper softly to himself just before Lord Steven of Gilead blasts out to those gathered a listing of my grievances.

I complete the challenge as custom demands by the rather quaint means of throwing a gauntlet down at the man's feet!

Too late Walter awakens to the reality of the challenge before him. Too late to try to somehow wiggle out some way and retain face. If he backs out now, not only will he basically be admitting to the charges....but whatever political connections will be gone. By custom, nobody wanted to be associated with a coward....and by backing off now....

Or perhaps he's trying to be cute, acting the part out to where we get out to the field and he'll try to wipe the floor with me. Indeed, I wouldn't be too surprised if he'd try to do that just to quell any future yahoos from trying to challenge him thusly....

Whatever the case and how silly this business may seem to me (I mean....come on, a duel of honor?....things like this only happen....never mind).... Well, the duel is on.

Sputtering a bit, he soon finds himself on the very field that not only yesterday Roland the Younger faced Curt. To the east lays civilization and enlightenment. To the east lays the place where men dwell. To the west lays the hut dwellers. The mad. The diseased and mutated. To the west lay exile. Those who fail the Rite of Passage here would be like those boys who come here and fail. To the West they would go into exile, forevermore boys.

Now, depending on just how Walter (who still is disguised as Martin Broadcloak) decides things will determine whether this duel is going to be to the death or to where one side cries off....

.....

Shit.

Later...

Panting and in a LOT of pain from the injuries of that battle, I look down at the smoldering pile of char that was once a man.

"Shit!" I say again, this time aloud (if softly).

Leaning heavily on my staff, I hobble over to those of the audience who'd stood their grounds even when a few spell bolts got a little too close for comfort. Sure those who stayed will get a lot of kudos or whatever from that feat (and a lot of snickering will happen for those who had more sense).

My friends, knowing what magic duels can do, hadn't lost face by running. They'd stayed well back before hand....

Whatever....

"God upheld the right and I stand victorious!" I say in my best voice as I have heard knights doing in the past on Terra Prime.

Steven blinks for a half second, not expecting that particular line (guess victors say some other line). Maybe I should have given credit to myself by saying something like having not forgotten the face of my father? Well, whatever. Now it is not the time to backtrack. Seems to go over rather well with the audience, who find it a rather....interesting and catchy thing.

Whatever.

Rallying, Steven declares me winner and that the loser's body be burned to ashes. Guy looks rather happy with the results and the way the audience is reacting. Figure that he made a lot of political hay out of this, somehow.

Whatever.

Shrugging, I snap my fingers and the last of the mortal remains burst into a rather intense flame...causing the audience to look at me strangely.

"My mess means my cleanup," I explain to one, walking off to great my friends. I give Andrea a soft kiss, glad to have her favor.

Now, back to this stuff about Walter, folks.....

Know that Walter will hang around as a ghost. Back in the book when Walter had died and left a skeleton, it had happened. See, Roland had several decades of his life taken from him by Walter and it only seemed fair to the Gunslinger that in repayment for that insult the skeleton's lower jaw (useful as a "mojo" as he put it) should be his.

Heh. In addition of that being rather....gross....it turned out that the jawbone was a means of Walter haunting Roland....

Never mind. Whatever dark and twisted plans Walter had are now burnt ash.

God, it felt good seeing that one last look of surprise on his face when I....

....killed him.

Well, as unenlightened as that sound, it did. Besides, he chose what the battle would be. Not me. It's all on him.

Hey, don't tell me about Champions being immortal. I had put in the stipulation about what would normally be a mortal blow counting as a win....

Might seem stupid to some but I....have been around the D'Honaires too long. Their ways....have an appeal that have rubbed off of me.

Ah, the wounds from that battle are already healing due to my inherent nature as a demifox. Good, because they sure sting!

"He just wouldn't give over," Andrea says, looking at the bonfire, "Guess his ego couldn't take a former tool getting the best of him."

"Yep," I sigh, "Just glad that I learned so much from the best."

Like my friends who know, we had been taught by the best magical minds of Terra Prime. Rank may hath privileges but in my case friendship helps a LOT! See, in the social setting of things....I'm just a commoner...

Planning on seriously joining the Knighthood of Allaria here soon. Despite the small size of mine, that means of moving up is open to all. Indeed, it was a way....especially when a "knight" could be one who used spells more than sword.

Ways of life are changing on Terra Prime, folks....

Well, after Steven goes and makes a grandiose speech and elevates a surprised Cort to be his new advisor (position is open now), we get on to our next piece of business.

A messenger had been sent to a nearby enclave of Old Ones, surprising the leader within greatly. As a rule, Old Ones are not exactly the most sought after people. Reminds the locals too much of the Great Poisoning, the disaster that had marked the beginning of such terrible trouble with the Dark Tower. Entire nations had fallen. Superpowers dying and all that....

Old One's ways were said to be the ways of death.....

......

I'd imagine that that particular attitude cheeses off some within the Old One community who want to actually aid the locals in improving things.

Roland's father is going to change a lot of things, and they are going to be a part of that.

That said, when we finally got a look at the representative the Old Ones sent.....

"My God!" I mutter despite myself, remembering that one book by Arthur C. Clarke, "It's full of stars!"

"Great," sighs David Bowman, "Another one."

He had been on this strange planet ever since he'd somehow been swept away from his spacepod right before that solar flare had hit it.

He'd been asleep at the time but the instrumentation that had come along with him had recorded the approaching blast....

Here on Midworld (as the natives call it), he'd had a less than stellar life...but a life....

Natives of this place were less than receptive to him....

And what a weird place it was! Mix of this and that. Anyway, that said, it had been a long two decades, fraught with peril and such. Also fraught with some kind of cosmic joke! He kept running into these people who seemed to recognize him from some kind of book. He'd tried to drill them for information about that, but they only clammed up after that for reasons David never could get. At least, in the end, he'd found this enclave of fellow castaways....

It went well with the feeling that somehow he was overlooking something here. Something he'd read about or had as a course back in college. Something in that one Literature class?

Nah.

Now, yet again, some kind of fan who probably wouldn't speak about what they'd read...

"Yes," he sighs, "And I guess that's somehow on par with 'Beam me up, Scotty.' from wherever you are from?"

1. He rather doubted that. Star Trek fans usually don't look like this....boy with fox features....?

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