by Lady of the Wolves
CHAPTER 1 : ATTACK OF THE SCARY LITTLE KIDS
Numair Salmalin, talented black robe mage and teacher, leaned over his complex simulacrum. Beads of sweat rolled down his tan forehead, hitting his worktable silently. “Just a few more little spells and I’ll be done,” he whispered to himself, just to hear his own voice. He was working in the mage’s wing of the new Royal University in his private workroom on a new project for the King. Picking up the wire with trembling hands, he wound it around his hand and opened his mouth to begin the incantation when-
CRASH! BANG! He dropped the wire and turned around, accidentally dropping his nearly-completed project. Picking it up with a few curses under his breath, he examined it, then dashed out of the room, searching for the source of the sudden noise. It’s probably some bumbling student who’s knocked down several shelves, he thought peevishly. Turning a corner, he found himself in an empty corridor-with a light shining under one of the doors.
“Just great,” he muttered, coming over and pushing open the door. He was temporarily blinded when a shock of bright light reached his eyes; he had been working in nearly total darkness to keep his simulacrum safe. As his eyes adjusted, the first thing he heard was mad giggling and lots of little feet running away.
Numair opened his eyes to reveal what looked like another mage’s large workroom. Several tables stood in the corner, on which many books, scrolls, and ingredients rested. The rest of the room was devoted to the shelves; rows and rows full of books, two of which that were knocked down. But the room appeared to be empty.
“He-hello?” Numair asked cautiously, entering the room. He was greeted by giggles, apparently behind the bookshelves. “Who’s there?” he demanded. More giggles followed. “Come out now!” he shouted. Obviously, he thought, someone’s little kids have gotten loose in here and are about to destroy the place or drive me insane. Whichever comes first.
Warily approaching the bookshelves, he could hear more giggles, which only infuriated him more. “Come out now!” he roared, face growing red with anger. The giggles stopped, but no one appeared. He came forward and knelt to see if anyone was hiding under the bookshelves that had been partially pushed over.
“Ow!” Someone had come forward and kicked him hard in the behind. Turning around with a blush, he came face to face, on his knees, with an innocent-looking little girl with flaming red hair and dimples. And violet eyes that he immediately recognized....or thought he did.
“What the-?” Numair asked, shocked. The child giggled and took off around a bookcase. Numair lunged for her but missed. Landing flat on his stomach with his face in the rug, he felt someone jump on his back, bounce once, then dash off giggling madly. Getting up with an “umph,” he sat up and could barely see another child dash around the same bookcase.
Suddenly, short arms wrapped around his neck from behind, making it impossible to breathe. Numair’s first impression was that he was being assassinated, and he immediately wrenched the arms off and turned around, standing up and bringing black, sparkly fire into his hands from his Gift. He faced his “assassin.”
An adorable little girl with big, blue-gray eyes and brown curls peered up at him, eyes brimming with tears. “What the...” Numair began, but was cut off by a high-pitched wail from the youngster.
“Scary big horsy man hurt me!” she sobbed, standing helplessly as tears fled down her face and her nose ran. Numair hastily knelt down to try and comfort her.
“It’s okay, I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just scared me,” he tried to explain. But she didn’t want an explanation. She lunged forward and bit him sharply on the nose. Numair let out his own high-pitched yelp and leapt back, clutching his wounded nose with both hands. The tot came forward and kicked him sharply in the shin, causing another yelp, then took off.
Nursing his injured nose, Numair stood up and followed the cute little demon. As he rounded the bookshelf, he tripped and went flying into a table. Moaning in agony, he rolled over onto his back and stared into the ceiling. A group of curious little boys and a girl came into view, looking down on him. The girl, cute with brown hair and mischievous hazel eyes, was clutching in her plump hands the string that had tripped him.
The boy with red hair crossed his arms and glared down at the prone mage. “Who you?” he demanded, kicking Numair’s already aching arm. The other boy, with chocolate hair and green eyes, laughed and jumped onto Numair’s stomach, causing another grunt from their captive.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Numair sat up, making the children back off. The red-haired girl and the blue-gray-eyed demon had rejoined them and they were circling him.
The strange part was, all of them looked oddly familiar....
“Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith,” Numair whispered in disbelief. He did recognize them! The red haired girl was none other that Alanna the Lioness, the first Lady Knight for over a hundred years. “Alanna?” he asked, squinting and moving towards her. The little redhead shrieked and threw the heavy glass paperweight that she had been clutching directly at his head. It hit his shoulder hard and he yelped again, causing another round of giggles.
“Howdja know me?” she asked, glaring at him with her purple eyes. Turning his eyes on the rest of the lot, he immediately knew who they were too. The little green-eyed boy with brown hair was Nealan of Queenscove, a rascal that he had taught in one of his magic classes. The hazel eyed-girl was Keladry of Mindelan, the second Lady Knight in at least a century. The little redhead was Cleon of Kennan, a lad he remembered from a skirmish he had broken up with a spell several years before. And the blue-gray-eyed demon was none other than his fiancée Daine Sarrasri.
“What in the name of Mithros did you do?” he asked incredulously. Pointing first at Kel, then around the circle, he said each of their names. “Kel, Daine, Neal, and Cleon.” They all glared at him.
“Big scary horsy man gots it wrong,” announced Alanna, chucking another paperweight at him; this time, he ducked. “That’s Kelly, then Dainey, then Nealy, then Cleony.” Bursting into giggles, the little kids scattered.
“Oh great,” Numair moaned. He was in for a long night.
###########################
CHAPTER 2 : NUMAIR TRIES TO STRIKE BACK
Rubbing his forehead, the great mage rose wearily to his feet. I have not yet begun to fight, he told himself firmly. He would get to the bottom of this.
Numair walked over and leaned against a bookcase, watching the floor at all times for any sign of evil child life. Slinking slyly through the workroom, no one was to be found. It was silent. Too silent.
“Cowzabunga!” shrieked a high-pitched voice, making Numair turn around, startled. The little girl who was Daine, or Dainey, leaped off the top of a bookshelf onto his back.
“Aaaaagggghhhhh!” Numair screamed, falling to the floor face-first. Slowly opening his eyes, he could feel her weight on his back.
“Horsy!” she demanded.
“What?” he asked, bewildered. Trying to get up, he was stopped by an angry kick in his ribs. He fell back to the floor with a groan.
“Me wanna play horsy! You horsy. Giddeup!” Bouncing up and down on his back, Dainey stamped her feet impatiently. “Now!”
Numair gritted his teeth. Be very firm, he told himself. “No! I don’t want to play horsy. Get off now!”
Dainey immediately burst into tears. “You....don’t....like....meee!” she wailed, pounding her little fists on his back.
“Ow! Ow, stop!” Numair pleaded. Little as her fists were, they really hurt!
“Umph!” cried Dainey, standing up, jumping on his back, then running off.
Numair lie on the floor for a long time. Slowly, a plan formed in his mind. He grinned.
Yet again pulling himself up from the floor, Numair snuck around the bookcase, this time watching both up and down. Swinging around a corner, he found himself face to face (several feet higher than, actually) with the scary children.
“Pway,” commanded the little Alanna with a slight lisp and a pouty lip.
“Hold on,” ordered Numair. “I want to know what happened to all of you.”
“Nutin!” shouted the little redheaded Cleon. “Now pway! Pway!”
“Pway! Pway!” the kids commanded, circling Numair. Strangely, the little Neal attached himself to Numair’s leg.
“I can’t play with you now, I need to finish working. I just need to know what happened....is there another mage here? Big, like me?”
The little Kel came forward and held up her arms, indicating that she wanted to be held. Tears formed in her small, dreamy eyes. “I wanna go home to Mommy!” she wailed.
Quick as a bonfire spreading through a dry forest, the others picked up Kel’s crying. “Want Mommy!” screeched Alanna loudly.
“How about if I, ahm, read you all a story?” Numair quickly suggested. Neal released him. This quickly cheered them up, so Numair picked up Kel and sat her in his lap on the floor. The children, except for Daine, all huddled around him. Little Dainey was doing her best to sulk and ignore the rest of them.
“Let’s see....once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who-”
“I wanna be the princess!” shrieked Neal excitedly.
“No, me!” cried Alanna. “I’m more pretty-fuller than you are!”
“Are not!”
“Am too!”
“Are not!”
“Am too!”
“Enough!” bellowed Numair. “It’s time for a new story. Okay...there once were three little pigs who-”
“You’re a pig!” shouted Cleon to Neal.
“No, I’m the princess!”
“No, I am!”
“Me!”
“Me!”
Numair sighed and rolled his eyes. And he had actually wanted to have children?
“All right,” he began, but was silenced as he felt a strange, warm wetness flowing onto his pants....
With a cry, Numair through off Kel, who had evidently lost control of her bladder. “Ew! Yuck! Great, now I have to go wash this off,” he moaned. Kel giggled and whispered something to Alanna, who in turn whispered it to Neal.
“What are you talking about?” Numair asked suspiciously. They all turned to him with innocent eyes.
“We’s got a new idea!” announced Kel. Numair groaned.
“No, I have an idea. I’m going to put on clean pants, clean you up, and turn you all back into sensible adults!”
The children exchanged glances, then turned to him with an evil look in their eyes.
“Lie down,” commanded the little Daine.
Numair backed away. “Oh, no. You are not going to try to play horsy again! I’m just going to go get some new pants and-”
While backing up, the ever-graceless mage tripped over a string that had been put there for that purpose. The kids ran over and sat on him, laughing in a care-free manner. Numair struggled, but he was no match for all of them.
“Just sit here and we’ll take care of you,” promised Alanna evilly. I’m not sure that I want to be ‘take care of ’ by you, thought Numair. Lying on his back, he looked up to see Alanna holding a heavy book above his head.
“Someone up there just really doesn’t like me,” he moaned before Alanna dropped the book and he went out cold. The other children quickly ran off to find the supplies they needed.
They needed to hurry to complete their project before he woke up. Daine and Cleon soon returned with pink paint, which was perfect. “All right! Let’s paint the princess’s dress before she wakes up!” cried Alanna. Her little minions laughed and got to work, changing Numair’s black robe to a pink one.
“Pink is much prettier than black,” commented Kel, and Alanna quickly agreed.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Numair awoke with a migraine. Blinking, he yawned and sat up only to yelp in horror. His expensive, black, silk robe was covered in gloppy pink paint! His pants were also covered in the wet paint. “MY ROBE!” he screamed, rising to his feet and surveying the damage most unhappily.
Sighing, Numair ran his fingers through his hair absentmindedly - and stopped suddenly. Something was very, very wrong with his mane of black hair. Gingerly touching it with both hands, his eyes widened in horror.
The little demons had cut his hair!
This was too much for the poor mage. Rushing to the washroom he spied in a corner of the room, he inspected his hair and face miserably. The adults-turned-little-kids had shaved off a large portion of the hair on the back of head. His face was covered in make-up. “I am going to KILL THEM!” he fumed, washing his face and trying in vain to fix his hair. Sighing, he leaned against the mirror and moaned softly.
The evil giggles that Numair had come to really hate pierced the silence.
Numair turned around, afire with rage. The little Keladry stood in the doorway, blinking up at the angry mage innocently. Her tiny hands were covered in the same pink paint that adorned Numair’s new clothes.
“I’m going to kill you!” roared Numair, lunging at the little girl. Kel scampered off and Numair bit the dust. But the mage was too ticked off to give up. He tore after the child like a cheetah after its prey. He finally seized the little demon and lifted her up by her shirt. He wouldn’t let go, even when Kel squirmed and spat in his face.
“Big scary horsy man is gonna hurt me!” wailed the youngster in her last defense.
“Oh no, I am NOT letting you get away that easily,” Numair growled. Turning around, he met the rest of the little kids. They squinted up at him, looking determined.
“Let her go!” commanded “Nealy,” his green eyes ablaze with young anger.
“Why did you do this to me?” Numair couldn’t help but whine.
“You were mean! You wouldn’t play horsy with me,” said Dainey stubbornly. Numair glared at her; she glared back. Kel squirmed in Numair’s grasp.
The little Alanna sighed. “We can make a peal,” she offered.
“A deal?”
“Let Kelly go and we’ll be good,” she promised, violet eyes twinkling.
“I think not,” retorted Numair, backing away from the little demons/kids.
“Don’t worry, Kelly!” called the miniature Cleon. “I’ll save you!”
“No, I will! I’m the pwincess and she’s my pwince!” Neal argued. Alanna hit him and he hit her back.
“I am the pwincess!” announced Alanna, kicking Neal in the leg.
“I don’t care if you’re the pwincess, I’m gonna save Kelly!” Cleon declared, leaping onto the mage, who shrieked and jumped back.
Dainey came forward. “I’m sowwy that I was bad,” she said humbly, peering up at Numair with the blue-gray eyes that he loved. She WAS his fiancée, he told himself as he stepped forward to pick her up. Surely she’d come to her senses and -
Fierce pain shot through Numair’s leg as Daine pounced on it and bit him. Frantically trying to shake her off, Numair lost his balance and fell into a table, dropping Kelly.
After the dust cleared, Numair sat up, groaning, and clutched his forehead. Pain shot through his shoulder. But all Numair could do was stare straight ahead at the open door to the workroom.
The little kids had gotten out. They were loose!
*********************
*NEW*
Don’t panic, Numair told himself, trying to stay calm. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Numair pulled himself to his feet, gingerly touching his aching shoulder and forehead. He steadied himself with a groan, then took several deep breaths. Glancing around him, he saw that the room was a disaster area. The children had knocked over bookshelves, dropped things on the floor, and glopped paint everywhere. “I’d rather eat a dozen of Onua’s cookies than be in here when the mage who owns this place comes back and sees it like this,” he muttered.
The minute he said it, he knew that he shouldn’t have. The creak of another door opening behind him filled the room like a noisy suit of armor crashing down a well.
“WHAT IN THE MOTHER-LOVING NAME OF MITHROS HAPPENED TO MY WORKROOM?!” roared a voice like a warlord charging into battle. Numair, though over six feet tall and strong, winced in fear. “YOU! WHAT DID YOU DO?!” screamed the voice in outrage. Numair, clenching his eyes shut tightly, turned around slowly, dreading to face the terrible mage.
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t me, but— ”
“WHAT HAPPENED?!” the mage screeched in anger. Taking a deep breath, Numair opened his eyes.
And didn’t see the mage.
Mithros, Minos, and Shakith, what now? He questioned the gods. Should I just throw myself out the window and be done with it?
“I’m talking to you, you big, bumbling idiot!” snapped the angry voice. “PAY ATTENTION!” The voice was coming from below, Numair decided. Like the voices of the— shudder— demon children. So Numair looked down.
And came eye-to-eye with an extremely ticked-off midget.
“What did you do?!” demanded the shorter-than-average man, trying to pull out his thinning, straw-colored hair. “You have DESTROYED my workroom!”
“It wasn’t me!” insisted Numair. “It was the children!”
“Children?” the man asked skeptically. “So your kids did this?!”
“No!” shouted Numair. “I heard a crash, so I followed it to this room, and there were these young children in here who attacked me and then they got out and— ”
“I don’t want to hear it!” snapped the short mage. “My experiments had NOTHING to do with children!”
Numair sighed in exasperation and ran his fingers through his hair. The mage eyed him with an amused expression.
“You know, something happened to your hair. A big chunk’s been cut out,” he said reasonably, trying not to snort.
“Watch it, pal,” Numair said in a low, dangerous tone.
This time the man did snort. “Looks like you need a new barber. Did ya try that one yourself?” he joked.
“I said you’d better watch it if you know what’s good for you!” said Numair angrily. He had always been slightly vain and was still incredibly upset about his hair. He patted it unhappily, sending the midget mage into waves of snorting laughter.
“Didja lose a bet?” guffawed the short mage, starting to laugh harder and harder. He clutched the table for support.
Numair clenched his fist tightly. “SHUT UP!” he shouted, his face turning bright read. The mini mage stopped laughing and looked up in surprise to see a large fist coming his way. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, still looking surprised as he lay prone, and passed out.
Numair took several more deep breaths and forced himself to stay calm. That certainly didn’t accomplish anything, he scolded himself. After checking the mage’s vital signs, he rolled him over on his back and patted his balding head awkwardly.
Looking up, Numair saw the open door and remembered that the demons had escaped. A sense of fear burned in his heart: what havoc were the wreaking? In the deep part of his mind, he knew what he should do.
He should go after them.
The very idea made his blood run cold with an icy shudder. He didn’t want any part of those monsters. But…they, when they were adults, had been his friends. And his love.
But you didn’t turn them little, another mind-voice chided sensibly. Wait for this mage to wake up and leave him to deal with them!
But maybe it wasn’t him either. He had had no idea about what Numair was talking about when he mentioned the little kids. Maybe this was some terrible accent that Alanna had crafted. Alanna or one of the now-little demons.
“I can do it,” he whispered, trying to convince himself. But his words were weak and he trembled as he approached the door to go after them. He slowly made his way across the room and carefully stepped over the threshold…and everything was quiet. Too quiet. Way too quiet if you’re on the trail of a bunch of manically insane little kids.
With a deep breath and a prayer, Numair set off into the hallway, heading back towards his own workroom out of habit. He didn’t pass any mages or students in the halls, which surprised him. The University was usually crowded at this time of day. Frowning, Numair rounded a corner and nearly bumped into one of his best friends, Lindhall Reed.
“Numair!” said Lindhall, nearly dropping the stack of papers he had been carrying. “Just the man I was looking for!”
“What can I do for you?” asked Numair, distracted. He wanted to hurry up and continue with the demon hunt, hopefully before dark.
“I need you to have a look at these papers…they should contain the right formula for the spell we were talking about with the pickled hecklewort and the vampire essence and the fhlunaberry and…”
Lindhall droned on and Numair couldn’t concentrate, so he stared past his friend into the large atrium where the corner they had met at was near. A tapestry of a prancing unicorn hung on the wall, flapping slightly…but there was no wind.
Something was wrong.
Straining his eyes, Numair looked down and saw legs sticking out from beneath the tapestry and it clicked. A devil child!
His mouth dropped in horror as the little “Dainey” emerged from the tapestry and approached a nearby pedestal sporting a vase. A very expensive vase, from what it looked like. She tried to climb it and the pedestal began to tip up. He caught his breath.
Lindhall noticed Numair’s strange behavior. “Numair? Are you listening? Are you— all right?” he asked concernedly as he watched his friend whine nervously.
Numair’s attention snapped back. “I’m— I’m all right,” he said breathlessly, trying to use the force to keep the pedestal upright.
Lindhall wasn’t shaken so easily. “Numair— I don’t know if you know this, but something’s wrong with your hair…as though some was cut off.” He ended the sentence on a laugh that he had tried to conceal. The mage quickly disguised it as a cough.
This really was too much for the poor Numair. “I’m fine! Don’t you think I would notice if my hair was cut off in a big chunk?! Or do you think someone might have already told me?!” he practically screamed, spitting all over Lindhall.
Lindhall opened his eyes wide and stepped back. “Um…are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, obviously unsure of Numair’s intent. “I’ll just be going now.” And he scurried off with one quick, backward look at his friend.
Numair, once Lindhall was out of sight, lunged forward and caught the vase that Dainey had just sent flying. He rolled, cradling the artifact carefully. The pedestal crashed to the ground. Lying prone, he gazed up at Dainey, who was eyeing him with limited interest. Suddenly, she ran up and kicked him hard in the ribs, then took off, giggling.
Numair groaned.