The final hidden camera was slotted into the tree-trunk. Everything had
been tested, and tested again. They were expecting a truly huge audience
for the 43rd Games this year. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong, with all
those billions of people watching across the universes.
Most of the Candidates had been chosen already. Trolls, witches, dwarfs,
elves and the viewers’ favourites, a pair of barely-clothed Amazons. Now
all they needed was a wizard. And not just any wizard either. They had one
particular person in mind.
In the meantime, their star wandered round the set, checking out camera
angles, trying out the bolt-holes for size. Preparation was everything if you
were to have any hope of survival, and she had insisted on a number of safety
precautions being added to her contract to tip the odds marginally in her
favour. There was going to be something of a twist this year, though, a twist
which would leave the viewing public in shock for weeks to come. She was
blissfully oblivious to this, of course. They couldn’t risk a last minute
resignation.
Just a few more days now to the opening ceremony. The Games would be
incredible, the best ever. There would be laughs, and there would be tears,
and there would be a great many deaths. Lonely, frightened, audience-
pleasing deaths, as the Candidates eliminated each other one at a time.
So all they needed now was the wizard. And they knew exactly where to
find him.
The first thing Halfshaft noticed, when he got back to his quarters at
Spartan Castle, was that he appeared to be there already. Which came as
something of a shock, even to a wizard as widely-travelled as him.
It had been a very long week. He had literally been to Hell and back, which
was never a good thing. And now he was back home, all he wanted to do
was put his feet up, puff on his pipe, and pay for several women of easy
virtue to do whatever it was that women of easy virtue were prepared to do
for gentlemen wizards of limited means. If they did it for long enough and
acrobatically enough, it might just put Takina out of his mind, though he had
to concede that you don’t generally get both “long” and “acrobatic” when
you’re working to a budget.
When he entered his chamber and came face to face with himself, it was
hard to know which of him was most surprised. The wizard in front of him
was much younger than him - by maybe thirty or forty years he supposed;
he was never very good at assessing the age of anyone still young enough to
turn their noses up at cardigans – but it was definitely him all the same. The
wizard’s hat, the bad temper masking rampant insecurity, the guilty way he
was attempting to tuck drawings of “Warlocks’ Wives” into the top drawer
of his bedside cabinet.
“Get out of my room!” demanded Young Halfshaft, furious that his
favourite hobby had been so rudely interrupted by a strangely familiar
wizard who had somehow acquired the key to his quarters.
“Our room,” Halfshaft corrected. “You’re me. Though I take no pride in
that at all. I never realised how scrawny I used to be until now. And that’s a
very sorry excuse for a beard, if you don’t mind me saying. Looks like
you’ve been sweeping floors with it.”
Young Halfshaft opened his mouth to retort that he wasn’t scrawny but
leanly-muscled; and that if the old man didn’t like his beard he could bugger
off to his own quarters or risk a sharp kick to the testicles. But the full import
of his unwanted visitor’s words finally filtered through to his brain. He
regarded the older wizard with more than a tinge of distaste.
“I’m you? I don’t think so! You’re far too old to be me, and not nearly as
good looking. And your beard’s all tatty and full of leaves. At least I give
mine a rinse every month or two.”
“I’m you from the future. And don’t be such a cheeky sod, I’m not that
much older!”
“How can you be me from the future? I’ve not had it yet.”
He sighed impatiently, as if having to explain himself to a moron. “I’ve
come back through a time tunnel. I’ve done great things. We’ve done great
things, I should say. Mainly me, though, because you’re not there yet. We’ve
saved the world twice. Me and you. Mostly me.”
Halfshaft paused to let the full import of his words soak in. This took longer
than anticipated. Was he really that obtuse when he was middle-aged?
Eventually, his younger self shrugged.
“Oh.”
It was the not the response he was looking for.
“Oh? I tell you we’ve saved the world, and all you can say is “oh”? You
could look a bit impressed. And grateful, come to that. You’ve been sitting
here, knocking one out over your “Warlocks’ Wives”, while I’ve been
vanquishing shape-shifters, fighting Amazons, escaping from psychopathic
trolls. So when you reach the future, it’ll be completely safe for you by then.
All you have to do is turn up and reap the rewards, knowing that I’ve done
all the hard work for you already. Yet you get to share in all my glory. Oh,
indeed!”
Young Halfshaft regarded him thoughtfully for a while. “I can’t decide
whether you’re a future me, a delusional maniac, or a bit of both. Saved the
world twice, you reckon?”
“Twice,” affirmed Halfshaft. “With my incredible magical powers. Powers
that you haven’t got yet, I might add!”
He thought he saw Young Halfshaft stifle a smirk, but it may have been his
imagination. Maybe it was a sob. All this must have been a lot for the poor
man to take in. He had always been a little slow on the uptake in his (relative)
youth. Probably down to inhaling all that magic dust floating around his
wizardry class-room as a boy.
“There’s only one way I can tell whether you’re really me, or not.” Young
Halfshaft announced. “Turn round.”
“Okay,” Halfshaft replied dubiously. “But if you try any funny business,
you’re going to get a smack in the face.”
“Trust me,” he replied. “I’m you, remember. That’s not the bag we’re into.”
Halfshaft turned around. “So what now? Are you just admiring my robes,
or is there a point to this?”
It was then that he was struck viciously across the back of the head with a
half-full chamber-pot. He heard his younger self cackle as he sank to his
knees, engulfed in alternate waves of dizziness and nausea. Fighting back
the pain, he swore for all he was worth. He had always found vitriol to be a
pretty good anaesthetic in the past.
Young Halfshaft nodded in satisfaction, as the older man swayed from side
to side in time with his own insults, as if dancing to them. He had a very
impressive repertoire of swear-words, it had to be said. He was like a rapper
with Tourette’s.
“Yes,” the younger man said. “You’re me alright. No-one else could
ridicule the size of our wedding tackle in quite so many ways as that.”
It was then that the elderly wizard lost consciousness, his knees buckling
beneath him as he collapsed to the hard stone floor.
#
When he came to, he was lying on the bed, with his relatively concerned
younger self bending over him. The world was still shifting in directions it
wasn’t really supposed to shift in, and he could smell sick in his beard, which
ironically made him want to gag.
“Sorry,” Young Halfshaft told him. “I thought you were some mad old
man. I didn’t realise you were mad older me.””
“Bastard,” Halfshaft replied, not without justification, as their parents had
never married (although his father had at least been able to visit his mother
on an almost weekly basis, her price having dropped to a more affordable
level during her pregnancy).
“I can see it’s you, now I’ve had a good look at you. It’s me, rather. A very
much older me, though.”
“Bastard,” Halfshaft said again, feeling the comment to be every bit as
justified the second time round. “Nasty little bastard,” he added, by way of
clarification. He was always keen to expand upon his insults with a pronoun
or two.
Young Halfshaft looked vaguely hurt. “Come on, put yourself in my shoes.
That shouldn’t be difficult in the circumstances. If you were in here, minding
your own business, when a fifty-years-older version of you walked in, what
would you have done?”
“Twenty years older.”
“Whatever. What would you think, though?”
“I’d think, I’m really pleased how well I’ve aged.”
Young Halfshaft laughed. “Look, I’m sorry about what just happened. I
feel bad about it, now I know who you are. Are you okay?”
“My head hurts, I’ve chucked up into my own beard, and I’ve probably got
irreversible brain damage, but other than that I’m hunky dory, thank you
very much.”
“Tell me I don’t use expressions like “Hunky dory” when I’m old!”
“Bastard,” Halfshaft replied, yet again. It was his new favourite word.
They lapsed into silence for a while. Halfshaft’s mood had plummeted. He
had been ecstatic earlier. Despite being a particularly crap wizard, he had
gone on a journey – two journeys in fact – which had seen him defeating the
most powerful beings in the world, and saving all mankind in the process.
But now he had gone back into the past, where no-one knew of his heroic
feats, so he would have to start all over again, even supposing he still had
the energy to do so. And worse still, he had been treacherously whacked on
the head by his own past self when his back was turned. He had gone from
elation to bad temper in the time it took to swing a chamber-pot (which was
not very long at all).
As Young Halfshaft apologetically washed the sick from his beard for him,
he thought of Takina, his young Amazon friend. The only thing that had
made his travels bearable was the fact that she had been with him pretty
much the whole way through. She was young, and gorgeous, and brave, and
gorgeous, and caring, and gorgeous and blonde. And gorgeous. And they
were friends. He would have liked to have been more than that, but he knew
that it could never be. She was very much younger than him, and could have
had any man she chose; to “mate” with, as she would have put it. But he
would have done anything just for a bit of a cuddle.
If it wasn’t for her, he would have stayed in the future. Or the present, as it
was then. He would have been a hero there. He could have been King, he
supposed, if he had really wanted to be, after what he had achieved. But now
he was back in his past, and he was nothing again. Just an old man smelling
of sick and –
He sniffed. Now the vomit had been removed, there was another smell
lingering furtively in the background.
“Can I smell –?”
“Sorry for that, too,” Young Halfshaft grimaced. “I hit you with a chamber-
pot. It may have spilled out a bit on your robe.”
Halfshaft opened his mouth to speak, but his younger self interrupted.
“Bastard?” Young Halfshaft enquired.
“Bastard,” the older man confirmed.
“Take one of my robes. You may have wasted away a bit, what with you
being ancient and everything, so it might be a little bit baggy, but it’s got to
be better than lying there in your own -”
He tailed off when he saw the expression on the older man’s face. Maybe
it was best just to stay quiet, if he could remember how.
Halfshaft went back to his own thoughts. They made more sense than the
young wizard’s offensive ramblings. He was a little confused. He was in the
past, but he could not remember this ever happening to him. If, as a young
man, he had met his future self and whacked him across the back of the head
with a potty full of urine, then surely that was something that would have
stuck in his memory? Time travel was a strange and confusing thing,
especially when you had concussion.
He accepted the offer of a clean(ish) gown with poor grace. Young
Halfshaft was looking increasingly sheepish. Good, he thought. So he
bloody should! He thought his favourite word again.
“Look,” Young Halfshaft told him. “I feel awful about this. Let me make
it up to you. There’s a lottery taking place in the courtyard in about an hour.
The winner will be rich and famous beyond our wildest dreams. Take my
place. And you can have it all if you win. It’s my way of saying sorry.”
Halfshaft thawed a little. This was the first remotely pleasant thing which
had happened since his return. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do it for us. I’ll be grateful for this in fifty years’ time.”
“Oi! Twenty years, I said!”
The two Halfshafts embraced, friends again.
“There is one other thing you could do for me, though, before I go,”
Halfshaft told his younger self. “If it’s not too weird.”
“Name it.”
“Can I borrow your “Warlocks’ Wives” when you’re finished with them?
Ten minutes on my own should be plenty.”
#
Halfshaft was almost as bad at queuing as he was at wizardry. Considering
that he had the magical ability of a comatose badger, this did not bode well
for the person ahead of him as they queued up for their lottery numbers in
the castle courtyard.
He had been waiting there – almost patiently – for the last thirty minutes.
There was a collapsible table up front, manned by a weary-looking clerk
with half-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. Between the wizard
and his lottery number stood Ditherer, a man who was clearly in no rush at
all to make his selection and move on. He had been asked to choose a
number, and had spent the last few minutes deliberating, without showing
any sign of reaching a decision. It was time to intervene.
He tapped Ditherer on the shoulder, to give him some friendly
encouragement. “Just checking you’re still alive.”
“Oh, I’m still alive, all right,” the man assured him. “I can hear myself
breathing. I’m just having a bit of a think, that’s all. I do that sometimes. It’s
good exercise for the brain, I’m told.”
He went back to his deliberations. Halfshaft tutted without effect. He rolled
his eyes theatrically to make it clear to everyone in the vicinity that he was
not even remotely impressed at being kept waiting so long. He tutted some
more. But all to no avail. The man in front was still having “a bit of a think”.
It was time to intervene again.
“Pick forty seven,” he said.
“Sorry?” the man enquired, somewhat confused at this unexpected
interruption to his thought processes.
“Pick forty seven. Now.”
“Forty seven’s gone, I think you’ll find.”
“Pick forty eight then!” Halfshaft snapped. “Pick forty eight, and sod off
out of it so the rest of us can have a go.”
“I don’t know if I like forty eight,” the man replied dubiously. “It’s not
what you’d call a man’s number, is it?”
“What?”
“A man’s number. A number for men. Like eighty six.”
“How is – Oh, never mind, Pick eighty six, then.”
“I like the way you think, young wizard. Eighty six it shall be.”
The clerk at the collapsible table shook his head. “Eighty six has gone, too.
Men’s numbers always go quickly.”
Ditherer’s face fell. For a moment, it looked as if he might cry at this cruel
twist of fate. “Who had it?”
“That woman over there; the one with the bosoms.” He gestured towards a
striking brunette standing a dozen yards away, the proud possessor of more
than her fair share of cleavage. “You can have forty eight, if you like. That’s
more manly than some numbers I could mention. Some fellow only chose
thirty one when we opened this morning!”
“He doesn’t like forty eight,” the woman behind Halfshaft chipped in, a tad
unhelpfully. “This wizard here was trying to bully him into choosing forty
eight, but he wasn’t having it. Quite right, too. It’s the number of the Beast.”
Halfshaft gave her a withering look. “I think you’ll find that’s six-six-six,
you mad old tart.”
“Forty eight is the Beast’s favourite number,” she insisted. “Always has
been, always will be. Six-six-six my bottom!”
“I like the sound of six-six-six,” mused the indecisive man at the front of
the queue. “It sounds kind of nice, without being the sort of number a lady
would choose. I’ll take it!”
“We only goes up to three hundred and twelve,” the clerk shrugged. “Why
not have forty eight, like this wizardly old gentleman suggested?”
“Number of the Beast,” muttered the woman, who was determined not to
let it lie.
“You don’t think it’s a bit too – girly?” asked the man. “I don’t want people
laughing at me for picking a lady’s number. Are you sure eighty six has
gone?”
Halfshaft pushed him aside, snatched up the clerk’s quill, dunked it in his
ink pot, and scribbled “forty eight” on the blank parchment at the top of the
pile.
“Can you read?” he asked Ditherer.
“Not so as you’d notice.”
“Then that says eighty six, okay? The number you wanted. No-one’s going
to laugh at you with a manly number like that, are they? Happy?”
Ditherer nodded, more satisfied than he had been since that glorious day
thirty summers ago when he had spent a full twenty minutes alone with Bess
Plowright behind the pig-pens (although if truth be told a good quarter of an
hour of their time together had been spent washing pig dung off his half-
mast trousers after they had finished the dirty deed). He was a man now, and
everyone would know it with a number like this. Eighty six, no less! He gave
the testy wizard a big sloppy kiss to show his manly gratitude.
“Thank goodness for that,” the clerk sighed, as he moved off to show his
number to anyone who cared to look. “I thought he was going to be here all
day, and the ceremony starts any minute. What number will you have?”
“Six-six-six,” bitched the woman behind him. “The number of the Beast,
he reckons!”
“What numbers have you got left?” Halfshaft asked, choosing to ignore
her.
“I could do you a one hundred and seventy six, if you like. Always very
popular. Or forty nine if you have less conventional tastes.”
“How often has one hundred and seventy six come up?”
“Never.”
“Forty nine will do me fine, then.”
“That’s the number of the Beast, too” grumbled the woman behind him,
but he paid her no heed. King Spartan had come out on to the balcony early.
The draw was about to begin. And his younger self had assured him that he
had friends in high places who could fix these things. Within the next fifteen
minutes or so, he was going to be very rich indeed.
#
King Spartan waved the crowd to silence, as he looked down upon them
from his make-shift balcony. Halfshaft listened with ever-increasing
incredulity as his monarch explained that he was here to supervise the
selection of the Castle’s two contestants for the “Games”. It was to be done
by ballot as usual. Everyone picked a number (except him, of course, as that
would be just a little too democratic!). The two lucky people whose numbers
came up would then represent Spartan Castle at the Games. There would be
two competitors from the Amazon village as well, together with two Elves,
two wood dwarfs, a pair of witches and a couple of trolls. There were also
assorted hazards thrown in, just to make it interesting: wolves, psychopaths,
touchy-feely lepers, that sort of thing. The Amazons almost always won, of
course. They were warriors of the first order. His own subjects, on the other
hand, were cretins, who had on occasion even been known to pick up their
swords by the wrong end, and disable themselves within the first few
minutes of the contest.
Halfshaft looked around to work on his escape routes, but every exit from
the courtyard was sealed off by a brace of soldiers. He squirmed
uncomfortably, cursing his treacherous younger self as the King droned on,
explaining how the Games had been running for forty two years now, what
an honour it would be to represent your King and country, how saddened he
was that he was ineligible to take part himself. And how he had every faith
that one or other of the Spartan Candidates would triumph over adversity,
and be the first to make it into the second round. And all this said with a
smug, regal face, safe in the knowledge that he would tucked safely up in
his throne-room while everyone else was hacking each other to shreds.
Without further ado (his lunch was getting cold) he read out the first
number, the number which was destined to send one of his subjects to a cruel
and painful – but ever so slightly heroic – death.
“Will the holder of number eighty six please step forward?”
#
Halfshaft was not a happy bunny. He had taken his younger self’s place
here to get rich, but he had been stitched up. Instead of getting his hands on
a lottery jackpot, he had just signed up for some sort of combat-to-the-death
event that he had not the slightest chance of winning. After everything he
had survived, he was going to be murdered by Amazons for the
entertainment of the King.
Halfshaft watched as Ditherer from the queue burst into tears. Of course;
he had wanted Number Eighty Six. He had positively insisted on it. Good
luck with your “man’s number”, he chuckled to himself. Even better luck
for me, though. My chances of staying alive have just doubled. And if I make
it through this, then my younger self is going to get the biggest smack in the
face we’ve ever had.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round to see who it was.
A woman. Young, very pretty, cleavage all over the place. The woman “with
the bosoms” whom the clerk had pointed out earlier. He gave her his very
best smile (which was not in fact an awful lot better than his wizardry if the
truth be told, as it made him look like a crocodile with learning difficulties).
“Hello, Madam,” he smarmed. “How might I be of assistance?”
“That’s my room number,” she purred, thrusting a piece of paper into his
hand, and closing his hand over it. “Come and see me after we’ve finished
here. There’s something I want to show you.”
“And I’d be more than happy to look at it” he assured her.
She winked at him, and slipped back into the crowd. Maybe the draw for
the Games wasn’t so bad after all. The odds of survival were pretty high,
after all, especially now he had safely negotiated the first number.
He looked back to the front. There was a soldier pushing his way through
the crowd towards Ditherer, ready to send him off to the Games, never to be
seen again. And all the while, Halfshaft would be up to his bare grazed knees
in the lusty young lady who had just succumbed to his wizardly good looks.
Life was getting better all the time.
He took a look at the piece of paper she had handed to him. There was a
number on it. “Eighty six”. That was a coincidence; her room number was
the same number as –
Realisation dawned, leaving him nauseous with anxiety. She had planted
the number on him which Spartan had just called out! He had been stitched
up twice in