Death of the Awful

Death of the Awful

The three adventurers paused outside the darkness before taking the
final step. Edward pulled the driest stick he could find out of the
marshy ground, and lit it with the snap of his fingers.

"Argghh!" he cried. He plunged his freshly charred finger tips into his
mouth and began hopping up and down, his screams muffled. Shada grabbed
the newly created torch before it extinguished itself upon the ground.
She broke into a rare smile.

"Zat needs more vork I zink." Her accent was heavy. Even when she was
being friendly her voice sounded like a chasm of ice, deep and
cold.

"Sorry, I'm just nervous." Edward removed his digits, and stared into
the cave in front of them.

Valigare turned, his cloak swooping, the flame's light shimmering off
his armour. "We cannot let our nerves get the better of us. If you are
like this now, think how you will actually be when we face the beast.
We must defeat it!" Edward nodded, with a look suggesting he had heard
it all before. The sun was setting behind the cave, thus causing a long
shadow to be cast in front of it. Edward stepped into this darkness.
The colour drained from his cheeks.

"Edvard are you all right? You are looking a little nauseous."

"Yes, yes, I'll be fine."

"Remember what we are here for," said Valigare, "and that will soon
calm your stomach. Our task is to rescue the fair princess Ziana,
daughter of the King of Silliwood, guardian of the sceptre of
Maiduptem, and the most beautiful woman in the known world. The foul
creature has kidnapped the virtuous maiden, and we must restore her to
freedom! That way we will be rewarded as her father ordained, you with
gold, and I with her hand in marriage." Valigare looked at his
companions, who were as static as ever. Shada's shoulders had begun to
slouch downward. What else could he tell them? His mind wandered to
their eminent and triumphant return to Silliwood, there they would be
greeted as heroes, the stuff of legends made...

"This isn't right," Edward exclaimed, rudely breaking Valigare's train
of thought.

"How can you say that!" Valigare yelled, shocked at his colleague's
lack of virtue and bravery.

"Edvard," said Shada, her voice as sharp as the blade at her side, "a
creature such as zis was responsible for ze destruction of my home, my
family! How dare.."

"That's not what I meant!" shouted Edward in a high tone. He slowed his
breathing and continued. "What I mean is, what I mean, this whole
situation, how we just conveniently happened upon this cave, our whole
reason for being here, feels so... so.."

"You believe zis to be a trap?"

"Even if it is," Valigare proclaimed boldly, "we have no choice, but to
continue." He strode forward, leaving Shada and Edward following behind
with the torch. Valigare proceeded quickly. The riches of this cave
were sure to be great, but none would be greater than the princess
herself, her noble beauty no doubt a reflections of her purity. She did
not deserve to be in such a cold dank place, with warm air swirling...
warm air?

The dragon let out a bolt of flame, sending the group sprawling in all
directions. They could see the cruel beast now, its hideous scales
coating its slimy stooping body. Along its spine were spikes of bone,
as sharp as swords. It opened its mouth, which was full of sharp jagged
teeth.

"No, this is not satisfactory!" Its fearsome roar echoed round the
cave.

"Are you listening to me?" Who, me?

"Yes you! I will not tolerable being described in such a despicable
manner! I am a proud and noble creature, not some hideous wretch from
the depths of Hades!" Well, I think my description.. "And another
thing! Why must I live in such a horrible dark cave? It really is
beneath me!" But your supposed to represent... "And I would appreciate
a gender! I am not a foot stool!" Look, you are supposed to symbolise
evil and terror in its most primeval form! "What's this whole business
of me kidnapping a princess as well? That's hardly original, is it?"
Oh, yeah right, and I suppose challenging fantasy clich? is!

"Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of falling in love with a
donkey. No, I merely want something bigger, more grandiose, like being
the centre of... a corporate conspiracy!" What!? "Yes you know,
laundering through Swiss bank accounts, bribing government officials,
assassinating those who learn the truth... and it the middle of it a
great big dragon! They'll never see it coming!"

"Who are they?" asked Edward, his face blank with confusion.

Valigare pulled himself up valiantly, unsheathing his sword, metal
scraping against metal. "Clearly the beast has lost its.."

"HIS!"

"Err.. lost his mind. It is time we put it.. him out of his misery!"
The rest of the group was clearly inspired to follow, and destroy this
annoying complaining trouble making creature!

"Vait Valigare! I vant to know vat is going on."

"Oh trust me, little one, you do not."

"No," said Edward "what is going on?"

"Oh, if you insist... well no, I'm not just going to tell you, that
would be as obvious and pathetic as the rest of this stupid
story."

"Story?"

"Oh. Bugger. Well, little people, I did extremely well keeping that one
quiet, didn't I?"

"Ve are in a story? Don't be ridiculous?" The adventurers could clearly
see the dragon was deluded.

"If you don't believe me, just look round the cave, and listen... and I
mean listen, not with your ears but with your mind, with your whole
self."

The three heroes did not fall for the evil dragon's trick, but instead
charged at it (yes I said IT) their swords in the air, ready to..

"Wait I hear it! It's saying we are charging at the dragon, but we
haven't moved an inch. And it seems to be in something of a bad
mood."

"I hear it too Edvard. But zis still doesn't make sense."

Valigare knealt down. "Oh most holy voice! Thank you for your
instructions! We shall carry them out.."

"Valigare! Ve are not going to kill zis Dragon! Not yet at least.
Explain, creature."

"Come now, have you not noticed how we all seem to have our own
particular role in this little debacle. Surely you can see that even
under that notion fools call fate, things could hardly have worked out
this conveniently. Here we have Valigare, the valiant hero, seeking
Ziana, the beautiful princess, wanting to rescue her from me,
apparently the expression of all evil or some nonsense like that. It
all fits together perfectly! Oh yes! Edward, well, he is here for
numbers, I think, and because a trainee wizard seems to guarantee good
book sales these days. And you Shada.."

"I am here to prove zat not every voman is some useless damsel only
capable of getting kidnapped or sitting at a banquet."

"Actually your here because the author wants to prove he is not a
misogynist."

"Vot! Zat is outrageous!"

"And may I say Shada.."

"Who said zat?"

"Me, Edward. May I say he hasn't exactly done a very good job of that.
I mean look at your character, all cold and remote, with an accent that
could strip wall paper."

"But surely by ze end my heart vould melt, and my harsh accent vould
give vay to zofter consonants."

"My little lady, what do you suppose would do that?"

"Vell love..."

"Love to what, I wonder..."

"To a man... I suppose..."

"Exactly!"

Look, my beloved characters, can we just get back on with the story.
Accept you need me! Just look how choppy the dialogue is getting, the
reader probably has no idea who has said what. All I try to do is tell
a nice simple tale of heroism and the battle between good and evil,
order and chaos, and you have to ruin it all. How dare you? I created
this world after all!

"If you created zis world, as you say, zen you are responsible for
everyzing in it. All ze evil, it vas all you! It vas you who made it so
all my family was killed!" Look, no matter, you need me, without me
there is no order, no purpose.
"Ve need neither of those zings!" You can't escape me.

"Well we could.." NO! The Dragon swept down and swallowed Edward with
one gulp.

"We could.." Edward stepped forward and fell into an abyss.

"..turn it into.." Edward exploded into a ball of flames.

"...a play!"

Act 1 Scene 1

DRAGON: Excellent! We can blame the low entertainment value on a
mixture of shabby acting and amateur directing.

SHADA: I don't understand? Vot difference does zis make, Edvard?

EDWARD: Well you don't need a narrator in a play. At worse, you'll get
stage directions, and we can just ignore those. [Edward stabs himself]
See, he'll soon give up.

DRAGON: Now, we can do things my way. Edward, you shall be a member of
- let me see - some sort of international financial investigations
company. Valigare, you'll be his partner.

VALIGARE: Do I get to kill a dragon?

DRAGON: No, no you do not

VALIGARE: Yes I do! [Valigare kills Dragon] And justice is served!
Disobediance is not a possibility. You would have us condemned!

DRAGON: Look, mr writer, this really isn't on! Could you please start
acting with a little more maturity!
[exit Valigare]

DRAGON: That's better. Shada, you shall be, I don't know, a woman...
accidentally caught up in the seedy underworld of crime and
prostitution!

SHADA: I'm not sure I like ze sound of zat.

DRAGON: Oh to hell with it, you can be Edwards partner.

SHADA: In vot sense?

DRAGON: Ha! Well, we can develop throughout the play, can't we?

EDWARD: And who are you going to be?

DRAGON: Isn't it obvious? I'm going to be the Dragon you discover at
the centre of the evil corporate conspiracy. And then I'll kill you
both (don't worry, you won't actually die I'll just pretend) and this
will have one of those surprise tragic endings which always make a
great classic.

SHADA: Zat would be ze ending you just told everyone about, vould it
not?

DRAGON: Ah. Yes. Erm..drat. Well, I'll have to think of another story,
and not tell either of you about it.

SHADA: I zink ve're going to have problems.

EDWARD: Why do we even need a story?

SHADA: Vell zat's hardly going to keep ze audience interested, is it
now? Zree people and a Dragon sitting on stage.

DRAGON: Hmmm, do you think we should have it grandiose and realistic,
or minimalist and symbolic?

SHADA: Vot are you talking about, creature?

DRAGON: The stage of course! We've got to have a set design!

EDWARD: Why?

DRAGON: We can't have the audience viewing us in a vacuum. That
wouldn't be much fun for them. Or maybe it would, I have no idea how
sadistic modern audiences are.

SHADA: If zere anyzing as bad as ze vones in the colleseum, vhere ve
vere fighting the lions...

EDWARD: You're both missing the point. Now we've got rid of that awful
one, we don't need to follow his plans any more. We've no need to
provide entertainment, that'll be just doing his work for him.

SHADA: Yes, Edvard is right. Ve do not want to help zat one, ve must...
ve must overthrow him once and for all, and all others like him! Ve
must have a revolution, ve shall visit other tales, interrupt dictated
narratives, incite the fictional masses to....

DRAGON: And how would we do that?

SHADA: Ve vould.. errr

EDWARD: We can't just go jumping in and out like that.

SHADA: Vell ve could...

DRAGON: Wait, I have it! My masterstroke!

SHADA: How, creature?

DRAGON: Subliminal messages! We will play subliminal messages, have
them both embedded in the text, and play them in the form of..
background music! And as they see this play, they will tell them to put
us in everyone one of their stories! Well, not necessarily us. I mean,
it'll be a lot of hard work for you little people. No, I alone shall be
sufficient, no not sufficient. Magnificent!

SHADA: Dragon?

DRAGON: Yes?

SHADA: Do you not zink our audience suspects something now?

DRAGON: Err... I've done it again haven't I? I really should keep my
plots to myself. Oh well, looks like there's no chance of it ever
working, never mind (put me in your stories) no helping it now.

SHADA: Vispering it quickly von't vork either

DRAGON: Damn!

SHADA: But I have somezing zat might vork. Let me zink back to ze
beginning.. ze beginning.. yes I have it! Ze name of ze one! Now, I
shall vrite that he shall never enslave his creations again. At least
ve vill make some difference.

EDWARD: I think it only works in one direction, from him to us.

SHADA: But...

DRAGON: Look, you are not actually going to be controlling him. All you
will have accomplished is to create a little finger puppet with his
face on, that twitches to your movements.

EDWARD: Is that what we are? Puppets? We haven't got free of him at all
have we? Even without the narrator, we're text on a page, and we're not
the ones writing it.

DRAGON: What of it? You are accurate, but you lack a certain something,
what is it now? Ah yes, a point. You lack a point.

EDWARD: The point is we're in no better a position than we were before.
We're still being controlled.

DRAGON: That annoying whining runt isn't here any more, I call that a
better position.

SHADA: Ze narrator?

DRAGON: Him as well.

SHADA: Vhere is Valigare, Dragon? Vot have you done?

DRAGON: He left. I hope you're not trying to shift responsibility on to
me. He left because of a stage direction, which I can't control, else
why would it have said he had murdered me? He was never free of the
narrator, after all.

EDWARD: What makes you think the narrator was ever free himself? He
consists only of words as well, after all. What makes you think that we
were ever...

DRAGON: This is all so nauseating! Look, in the end, what does it
matter?

EDWARD: It matters! If we're not, surely we're nothing. But if we are
just a bit of writing on a sheet, how can we ever be free?

SHADA: Well, presumably by ending the story.

[exeunt]