Love and Chaos

The First Duel to the Death

"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline."
--G.K. Chesterton

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"I've done it! I've finally done it!" Bedlam cried, jumping out of his seat and hitting his head on the ceiling. "Ow. Well, I've almost done it. I'll save my victory dance for a larger room. Now..."

He looked up from his table of notes and diagrams and examined his shelves, which contained glowing green mushrooms, shards of smoking crystals, and jars and cages housing a numbers of animals—all the specimens needed for mechano-magical invention. While most Lessarians settled for sealing magic from the plants growing around the moor into their inventions, Bedlam had hunted through the alleys of Catawampus and the caves of the Gammon Coast for rare and interesting finds in the hopes of pushing the limits of his powers, like the once-great General Duplicity Jinx.

He'd collected what he needed, studied up on each creature or object's magic, and was now ready to start his most ambitious experiment. Running his finger along the shelf, he stopped at a slot marked Phantasmal Jellyfish, which housed a clear glass jar with several holes punched in the lid.

"Come on now," Bedlam said, carrying the jar to his table. "You and I are about to make history."

Just as he was unscrewing the lid, careful to keep his hand over the opening, his brother burst into the room.

"Bedlam, stop whatever you're doing and come talk to Father."

"Sorry, Mayhem, I'm in the middle of something."

Mayhem glanced around the room with a smirk.

"Oh, clearly. A new 'invention'?"

"Yes."

"You know, inventions usually involve creating a tool for use, not fiddling with various plants, animals, and... empty jars."

"It's a phantasmal jellyfish," Bedlam said, removing his hand over the mouth of the jar to point into it. "They're invisible."

"Mmm."

"And soon they won't be the only ones. I'm going to use this jellyfish's magic to turn an ordinary and otherwise unremarkable watch completely invisible!"

He thrust his hand into the jar to demonstrate, only to find it empty, with nothing but a sticky film and the bottom.

"Gone?" Mayhem asked. "Pity. So can we get a move on now?"

"Not to worry. I've prepared for this eventuality." He seized a bowl of orange powder from his desk and began to throw handfuls of it around the room.

"Brilliant," Mayhem said sarcastically. "Anyway, if you're not going to come, then I'll just tell you here. You know that Styxian girl?"

"Your fiancé?" Bedlam said, throwing another handful of powder, which stopped in midair and seemed to float there, drifting up and down. "See, it caught on the miasma," he continued, waving his hands in the air above the floating powder until he felt something cold and solidly gelatinous.

Mayhem watched as Bedlam cupped the invisible creature in his hands and brought it over to the waiting metal pocket watch, which seemed to soak up the creature's invisibility as Bedlam touched the two together. He released the jellyfish and held up his thumb and ring finger with the newly invisible watch between them.

"I've finally done it!"

"I guess you could say that. And what exactly it the point of an invisible watch?"