Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 9. Whoa Whoa Whoa Buddy

The wizard didn't seem all that weird to Clementine. They were drinking tea in the common room of the bunkhouse that gnomes built for larger sapients when they had business with the warren. It was about a quarter mile from the main warren, and could comfortably sleep an entire hobgoblin war party.

They had been talking for a couple hours, and it turned out that they had a lot in common. The wizard, Aloe, could see through a god-statue's eyes whenever Marbles got near it. So he knew everything about Opal, about Brutus, about that Owl God nun. He was explaining his side of the story to Clementine.

"So, just like you've been working really hard to try and put these worthless statues to work," said Aloe, stirring honey into his second cup of tea. "I myself had harnessed the marble at the heart of the Snapping Turtle God, which allowed me to have a life span like that of an elf, or a gnome, like yourself. There were twelve of these worthless rocks laying about all over the world. Some of them are enshrined in temples, one of them was beneath the sea, one was even orbiting this planet, between our atmosphere and the stars."

"And when you take a marble..." said Clementine.

"Oh my God they go, for lack of a better term, buck wild," said Aloe, holding his callused right palm over his cup and radiating waves of heat into the tea. Clementine couldn't help but stare-- gnomes had a love/hate relationship with magic. Despite having the wisdom and willpower equal to that of any sapient, they just didn't have the knack for magic. They could research it, and benefit from its effects, as Clementine had, but there hadn't been a gnome born who could perform the simplest spell themselves.

"But," continued the wizard, "I hadn't anticipated the gods becoming so enraged at losing their marbles. Still, after I first felt the kind of power you got from a marble, I couldn't care less." Aloe inhaled deeply at the thought of the power of his first marble rushing into his chest. It had been three centuries ago to this very day. "And I certainly didn't anticipate someone like you," he said, pointing his spoon at Clementine, who shifted slightly in her booster seat. "Who would have thought you could harness a god gone mad? I mean when you think about it would be a huge waste not to. They're basically just sources of..."

"Infinite energy," said Clementine and Aloe at the same time. They both tried on their best wry smiles.

Aloe held his hand over Clementine's cup and raised his thick ginger eyebrows inquisitively, offering to reheat her tea as well. Clementine smiled and politely shook her head no. "How did you get those calluses?" she asked. "I thought wizards were..."

"Bookish?" asked Aloe. "Too busy poring over brass bound tomes to work up a sweat? Normally you'd be right, but I had to ride Destroyer across half the entire Forbidden Steppe to get here. I would have flown, but when we lost the Owl God..."

"Destroyer's your horse?" asked Clementine.

"Yes," said Aloe. "A gift from the Horse God, which is probably the next easiest god for Marbles and your brother to get to."

"And if Marbles gets near that thing, you lose your horse," said Clementine. "And you lose another revenue stream," said Aloe, winking at Clementine. "You know about Sycamore City?" asked Clementine, flattered.

"We wizards simply cannot stop talking about it," said Aloe. "That's big magic you're making out there, and if the Horse God's marble is returned, the entire project will unravel."

"And the people will lose another service," said Clementine. "Another step back into the Stone Age."

"And this time your brother might not survive," said Aloe. "Every time those gods see a marble they try to take it back, and they are not polite about it. And with each marble he loses, the protective spell that I've cast upon Marbles weakens. It saved Marbles and your brother once, it might be strong enough to do that again."

"You get weaker, too, right?" asked Clementine, who covered her mouth as she realized her faux pas immediately. To bring up waning power to a wizard was to risk disintegration. To Aloe's credit, his nostrils barely flared.

"Yes," admitted Aloe. "I lose a great deal of power with every marble, and with that I lose an ability that could help me to track down and talk Marbles and your brother out of this silly quest. That poor hawk has been my familiar for years. I don't want him in danger, and I also don't want him fucking up everything we've worked so hard for." Aloe had spent almost the entire afternoon sequestered, alone, in an oilcloth tent erected around the fallen Owl God, where every alchemical experiment only served to confirm that once a marble reunited with its statue, the marble completely disappeared.

"We'll round up a tracking party tomorrow," agreed Clementine.

"I'll be awake at first light," nodded Aloe, finishing his tea and wiping his goatee with a linen napkin. "Clementine, I'd like to thank you again for your hospitality and your understanding. I feel that by working together we can save your business, my power, your brother, and a silly little hawk who just had to sow his wild oats and is now in way over his head."

"I agree," said Clementine, hopping down from her seat. "See you tomorrow." Aloe nodded. Clementine opened the door and met with Brutus, who had been leaning patiently against his riding boar outside. After seeing how famously Clementine and the wizard had gotten along, Brutus was just eaten up by jealousy and I have no idea how that's going to play out later. He didn't say anything, though, merely smiled and kissed Clementine on the forehead before helping her aboard the boar.

"Wow that gnome was smokin'," thought Aloe as he adjourned to his bedroom. "So smart, and poised, and elegant. Like a sawn off Anjelica Huston." He dabbed some saliva that he had wiped from Clementine's teacup around the inside of a silver amulet that had a raised symbol of the Boar God on it. He hung the amulet around his neck and used the power of the Squid

God to envelope his bed with a black anti-scrying privacy bubble, then paired that with the Fox God's power to access technological devices from any multiverse to make a Google Home Mini speaker appear in the palm of his hand.

"OK Google, play an episode of NPR's Fresh Air with Anjelica Huston," said Aloe.

As the speaker politely complied, Aloe laid it on the center of his pillow and got completely naked save for the amulet. He climbed into bed and began dry humping it, holding his mouth open over the speaker so that it felt like he was almost making out with the sound. He continued dry humping the bed until orgasm, then rolled over and fell instantly asleep.

Sooo...there's that.