- Chapter 13

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I Look Good
Selina Rosen
The seeds of rebellion were planted on the morning I woke up leaning against a tree covered in cold dew, with my left nipple screaming in pain.
I had fallen asleep at my post, and why not? I hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. I straightened up quickly and pulled at the chain mail till my nipple was free.
That's all a damn chain mail bra is good for. If you don't believe it, look at my poor body.
As armor goes, a chain mail bra and loincloth doesn't offer much protection. See, very few fighters actually aim for your boobs or your crotch. They're way too busy swinging at the more obvious targets—like your head and your bare arms, stomach and thighs. In fact, you might as well paint the uncovered parts with bull's-eyes and be done with it.
I guess it happened for me the way it happens for so many other young people who wind up in the employ of an evil sorcerer. You're just standing around your village one day wondering if the turnip crop is going to be a good one, and in ride the evil sorcerer's minions looking for recruits. If you still have all your teeth and look good, you're in. If you can hold a sword without tripping over it and ride a horse, you move right up the ranks.
Now I know what you're thinking. Why would anyone willingly join the minions of an evil sorcerer? And yet, you show me an evil sorcerer, and I'll show you hundreds of loyal minions, all willing to throw themselves on pikes to save the wizened old creep.
The answer is as old as time itself. It's all about the money. You see, evil guys have no morals or ethics, and so they have buckets, caves, castles, dungeons full of ill-gotten treasure. Even the most lowly evil sorcerer's minion will earn more in a week than a turnip-grubbing wretch can make in a year, and that's if the crop comes in good. Evil sorcerers aren't stupid; they know not all things can be bought. However, loyalty isn't always one of those things.
Most evil sorcerers throw in great health benefits—as many of them have the power to heal you—and a retirement package to die for, not to mention overtime and hazard pay. The recruiters promised we'd see strange lands, and meet exciting new people, then plunder the land and kill the people and take everything for ourselves.
It was a deal that would be hard for any starry-eyed youth who dreamed of a better life to walk away from.
Of course, the big deal maker for me had been the uniform. At twenty I had looked amazing in my armor—the long, flowing, blood-red cloak that was the uniform worn by the minions of Ikious the Terrible. The armor had shown off my well-defined body. The color of the cloak had complemented my dark hair and eyes. The gold-handled long sword I wore strapped to my side set off my bronze skin, and damn I looked good!
I had risen up the ranks quickly till I had the job of Ikious' captain of the guards—his personal protector. I'd held the post for many years and served him well. For the most part it had been a great job. I pretty much just stood around wherever he was, looking menacing and sexy, as he worked his evil magic spells and made his evil potions. Occasionally he'd hold court of sorts. Some paladin or other white knight type would be drug before him as he sat on his throne of human skulls. I'd stand to his right side with my hand on my sword hilt and just the right combination of snarl and smile on my lips as my employer would "question" the good guy. Then when he'd gotten all he could from him sometimes he'd even let me cut the guy's head off.
Yes, those had been high times. But then I had looked good in the outfit, and at thirty-eight I wasn't so hot in it any more. My once flawless body was now a testament to the ineffectiveness of the armor we warrior-type minions wore. With age I had developed a bit of a paunch, and from wearing heavy metal as my only support, my breasts now hung almost to the top of my belt which—if I was looking on the bright side—at least afforded a little more protection for my stomach, but looked sort of like two cannon balls fighting over the same space when I walked. In fact, I often joked that if I could learn to maneuver them correctly without bouncing them into one another, that I could probably successfully knock out two opponents at once.
I had started moving slower in the last few years because my joints often ached. No doubt from years spent freezing my nether regions off. See, though an all-enveloping cloak should afford a certain amount of warmth, it isn't worth what a horse leaves behind him when you're wearing nothing underneath but cold metal and it's snowing and the wind's blowing. In fact, I've often said I'd be better off naked.
Which is exactly how I felt on that morning when I woke in pain, frozen to the bone from the all-night vigil I had been ordered to keep while the evil sorcerer Ikious the Terrible and my replacement slept warmly in his tent.
Some of the other girls had suggested that I was just jealous, and I admit I was mad as hell about losing my position to some young upstart. But I was in no way jealous of her relationship with Ikious. I slept with him because it was part of the job, not because it was particularly enjoyable.
Let's face it, evil guys are selfish in bed.
She had gotten my job. A job I'd done well and loyally for many years. It wasn't my fault I didn't look as good or move as well. It was all the fault of the uniform. A uniform that Ikious had hand-picked.
On that morning as I stood in the woods with my flesh nearly blue, my knees barely functioning, and my nipple throbbing, I decided I was sick of that damn uniform.
* * *
We were on a quest for the Great All-knowing Cumquat, a fruit that when you ate it was supposed to give you the Knowledge of All Things.
Evil sorcerers are always going on quests for things to make them even more powerful. No doubt so their under-clothed, under-armored minions can risk their lives and frostbite trying to find them.
We were close to the cave entrance. The cave wherein we would supposedly find the tree which bore fruit only on the twelfth day, of the twelfth month, of the one hundred and twelfth year, at the exact moment that the moon hit its zenith. When the correct incantation was spoken, the one and only Great All-knowing Cumquat would start to glow, and at that moment it had to be picked and shortly after consumed or the power would be lost forever.
I don't make the rules.
I stayed loyally at my post till Ikious strolled from his tent and stated that we were by his calculations half a day away from the mouth of the cave. Further, he said that even when we had fought all the creatures guarding the tree we should have plenty of time to retrieve the Cumquat and for him to become even more powerful, which would mean hazard pay and bonuses for all of us. We all cheered of course, though I have to admit myself less than enthusiastically.
For some reason any sorcerer, evil or otherwise, always finds it necessary when going on a quest to cut it to the very last minute. That's one of the downsides to working for an evil sorcerer. When they fail and lose a magic item they want very badly, they get really testy and kill from one to ten minions. Up till this time I'd been among the not-to-be-fragged minions, but I wasn't any more. That, as much as the fact that marching fast kept me warmer, had moved me to the front of the ranks. See, if Ikious saw me kicking a little creature gluteus maximus, he might just decide I didn't deserve fragging.
So I was in the very front when we ran upon the huge troll guarding the entryway to the cave. He slung an enormous war hammer at me that I easily jumped away from, but which crushed the warrior standing to my left. That was the thing Ikious had forgotten; you didn't get to be an old minion unless you were also a smart minion.
With the troll's weapon temporarily held in a suction to the ground by warrior goo, I jumped up and planted my sword easily in his heart. Then I jumped out of the way before he could fall on me. I was thinking I had just successfully moved back into the not-to-be-fragged pile, when much to my dismay, the bastard toppled over backwards—successfully blocking the cave entrance.
Ikious walked up to me, his face a mask of anger, and yelled, "Oh, great going, Helgar! Now I'll have to waste a Move the Giant Troll spell."
"We could move him, Master," I suggested. After all, he was just a troll, not a giant or a cyclops. I just didn't get why he was making such a big deal, and I was thinking that I was definitely in the to-be-fragged pile if we didn't get him that damn Cumquat now.
"We could move him, Master," Ikious mocked me, and then with a simple whispered word the troll flew out of the opening. "Why don't you go first, Helgar?" he suggested.
Which of course meant I had just been relegated to the position of cannon fodder. I walked into the cave, and the other minions followed. Ikious did a light spell to guide us—which in my opinion was more or less a way to let anything that was supposed to be keeping us out know that we were coming.
I always wondered why he didn't try something like a Make Everyone See In the Dark spell. Makes more sense to me. It would be a damn sight more stealthy.
We walked for a long time without running into anything, which made me believe that either Ikious' calculations were incorrect, and we had turned the wrong way three or four turns back, or we were getting ready to run into something incredibly nasty.
Enter the medium-sized, three-headed weasel.
Now I know it doesn't sound all that terrifying, but I assure you this was one deadly beast. A third of the minions lay dead before the last of the weasel heads had been severed. I had yet another cut on my stomach, which was no doubt going to leave a scar, and Ikious was bitching that we had wasted too much time. It was then that I charged on ahead even faster than I had before, forcing the minions and Ikious to either keep up or be left behind. Turns out I ran right by the herd of small but very poisonous spiders which fell upon the group of minions just behind me. Instead of turning around to help them fight them, I just moved further ahead of the group. I heard Ikious spout an incantation to dispatch the spiders. I don't think he even noticed then that I had left them behind. He might have even figured I was dead. I increased my pace even more.
Now here's something to think about. Why would a god or sorcerer—or anyone else who makes magic crap—create something so dangerous that you have to hide it and put creatures to guard it to keep it from falling into the wrong hands? And if you did it accidentally, why wouldn't you then destroy it? And if you couldn't destroy it, why not blow up the entire cave you put it into? I don't care how determined you are, you aren't going to pick through thousands of feet of rock. Even hundreds of loyal minions aren't going to be able to move ten miles of rubble.
I could feel it. The moon was rising; we were running out of time. You see, in all those years I had worked close to Ikious I had listened carefully to everything he'd ever said. I'd slowly, carefully, learned every spell in his book, every incantation. Looks fade, your health fails you. You can't be a warrior minion of an evil sorcerer your whole life. Eventually you have to find something that isn't so physical.
I ran into the main room of the cave, and there it was—the tree of the Great All-knowing Cumquat—and between it and me a moat of bubbling acid.
No problem.
* * *
Ikious and his few remaining minions skidded to a halt on the other side of the moat of acid.
"Helgar . . . how?" Ikious asked, looking at me across the acid and then at the tree behind me.
"Simple," I said with a shrug and held the glowing fruit up in front of me. "I walked across." I waved my hand dismissively in front of me, and the moat of acid seemed to disappear.
"Helgar . . . give me that fruit, and . . ." The moat was still there; it was just a simple glamour. Ikious and his new captain of the guard fell right in.
See, it's a well-known fact that when evil sorcerers are faced with losing a magic item they want really badly, they go temporarily insane. If he had been up to his full game, he never would have fallen for such a simple trick.
I looked at the minions who stood staring in disbelief as Ikious melted in the acid, and I ate the Great All-knowing Cumquat.
It was actually very disappointing. See, it would have more accurately been titled the Cumquat of the Knowledge of How to Cure Ailments of the Foot. Why the god or sorcerer or other thing that creates such items had thought it necessary to hide it so well and put all the creatures there to guard it, I have no idea.
Maybe it was all an elaborate joke. Whatever the case, I found no need to tell the remaining minions. I let them all go with severance pay.
So, now I'm in the evil sorceress business, with my own scantily clad minions of well-built men. But when we go on quests to get great evil stuff, I let them dress warmer, in the hopes of keeping their loyalty.
These days I wear long, flowing, loosely-fitting, luxurious robes of purple and blue velvet. I'm warm and comfortable, and damn, I look good.
 
 
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Framed