Dan the Barbarian Read online

  Dan put a hand on the door but hesitated.

  Just slip inside, he told himself, silently as a thief. Maybe they won’t even notice you.

  He summoned his courage, opened the door as quietly as possible, and tiptoed into the classroom.

  The snake stopped hissing.

  Everyone turned to look at Dan.

  So much for stealth…

  Framed in a crown of white hair, Dr. Lynch’s wizened face looked up from the podium and fixed Dan with a death stare.

  “Sorry,” Dan stammered, his blood turning to ice.

  Dr. Lynch raised her scrawny arm slowly and pointed a gnarled finger in his direction. Her rheumy eyes blazed with cold fire. “Late,” she said, her voice as dry and merciless as that of a necromancer casting the final word of a death incantation.

  “Sorry,” Dan said again, and started toward an empty seat in the back.

  “Do you have your assignment?” Dr. Lynch rasped.

  “Yes, Dr. Lynch,” Dan said, “I’m sor-”

  “Bring it to me,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said, feeling a surge of hope. He struggled with his bag, clutching it to his chest and unzipping it to retrieve his homework. Several pens, a half-eaten Snickers bar, and a dog-eared copy of John Norman’s Raiders of Gor fell to the floor.

  Nearby students stifled laughter.

  Dan set his bag beside these items and hurried to Dr. Lynch’s podium. He held out the dirty, wrinkled paper in a shaking hand.

  Dr. Lynch held the assignment at arm’s length, pinched between two bony fingers. She fixed him with her blazing eyes. “You are late,” she said. “This paper is late.”

  “I know,” he said quickly, trying to plead his case before she passed some harsh judgment. “I’m sorry that I’m late. A girl wrecked a bicycle, so I stopped to help her, but—”

  “This isn’t English class, and I’m not interested in your stories,” Dr. Lynch said. “This is geology, the study of heat and pressure and time. This essay is late, and I do not accept late work.”

  “I know,” he said. Desperate, he went for broke, leaning in and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, but please, cut me a break this once. If I don’t keep a 3.0, I’ll lose my scholarship, and without that, I won’t be able to stay in school.”

  Dan could feel his eyes starting to burn and realized that he was close to tears, a surprising realization. He hadn’t cried since he was eleven and his older brother, Kip, had died.

  Dan fought now to hold it together, knowing that tears to someone like Dr. Lynch would be like fresh blood to a vicious dog. “Please,” he said. “My whole future depends on this.”

  Then Dr. Lynch shocked him, doing the last thing he would have ever expected, something he’d never seen her do before, something he wouldn’t have thought her even capable of doing.

  She smiled.

  Dr. Lynch’s teeth were small and tightly packed into red gums receding from the enamel. Her breath hit him full in the face, a horrible rotten smell that made his gorge rise.

  She must be sick, he thought. Like really sick.

  Maybe that was why Dr. Lynch always seemed so harsh. Maybe she was in a lot of pain.

  Maybe she isn’t even mean, he thought. Maybe she’s just hurting.

  “Late,” Dr. Lynch rasped, and tore Dan’s paper in half.

  4

  Things Get Weird

  Dan wanted to head home and play T&T. Forget Dan Marshall, level zero sophomore, and become Wulfgar Skull-Smasher, level seven barbarian instead.

  But no.

  He couldn’t pretend that everything was okay.

  If he lost his scholarship, he would never be able to afford college. He would be forced to move back home, where he would be lucky to land a job at one of the factories in town or the slaughterhouse over in Wyalusing. He would have no degree, no high-paying job, nothing but a boatload of debt and two boatloads of regret.

  So no. He couldn’t just “pull a Dan,” lose himself in the game, and put off his troubles.

  This was it. His last chance.

  He walked uphill to the library and rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and the Rare Books Collection, where he liked to study. During breaks, he could look through old books and check out the glass display cases that housed cool stuff that often seemed straight out of a T&T adventure.

  First, he rewrote the GeoSci paper. He would go to Dr. Lynch’s office and beg for mercy. Grovel, if need be.

  He sighed and glanced out the window.

  Outside, day gave way to dusk. Up and down the Pattee Mall, lights twinkled to life. Overhead, turned electric blue.

  Time for a break, he thought. He stood, stretched, and walked away from the table, his legs tingling from sitting too long.

  His stomach was growling, but he didn’t have money for the vending machines, so he decided to feast his eyes instead. He beelined it past the librarians’ desk to one of the pedestals holding a glass display case.

  Nearing the display, he smiled at the sparkling, gem-encrusted decanter inside.

  Cool, he thought. Looks like something out of 1001 Arabian Nights.

  Then he stumbled.

  Epically.

  He grunted with surprise and fell, thick arms pinwheeling. The moment slowed in that particularly sadistic way that terrifying moments so often do. Dan saw the display case coming closer and closer and had time to think, Oh no… oh shit… I’m going to hit it, but his body couldn’t keep pace with his mind. He was trapped in a nightmare, able to see exactly what was about to happen, able even to think it through, but completely incapable of doing anything to stop it.

  He hit the display, knocked it over, and watched in paralyzed terror as the glass case and the doubtlessly priceless vase inside fell in slow motion toward the library floor.

  The display case shattered with a horrifying explosion of noise. Glass shards flew everywhere. The ancient bottle hit the floor and bounced into the air, where the glittering stopper came loose and… stopped.

  The cap stopped in mid-air. So did the bottle.

  In fact, everything stopped.

  The librarian’s voice cut off in mid-gasp, the startled cries of the handful of people studying nearby shut off instantly, and right before Dan’s eyes, the bottle, stopper, and spraying glass froze in the air as if someone had hit a cosmic pause button.

  Everything stopped.

  Everything except Dan, that is.

  “What the hell?” he asked the frozen world. He looked around. No one moved. Everything was silent. Except…

  He heard a faint hiss then, and looking down, he saw a strange purple mist rising from the uncapped decanter.

  “Whoa!” Dan blurted.

  The purple mist poured out faster and faster. It hovered above the frozen bottle and slowly condensed, seeming to grow into a solid form.

  Dan took a step backward. He was terrified but also too amazed and curious to run.

  The mist formed into the shape of a huge man, easily eight feet tall and packed with muscle. As the man’s features coalesced, the purple mist thinned, spinning round and round the huge figure.

  The spinning mist lowered, revealing a golden turban, a huge head with a handsome bronze face punctuated by dark, amused eyes. The swirling vapor dropped lower still, revealing more of the huge man, until it reached his waist, where it stabilized, whirling slowly in a purple tornado that stretched from the mouth of the gem-encrusted bottle to the golden belt of the humongous man.

  Above this belt rose a muscular, bronze-skinned giant dressed in a golden vest. His mustachioed face split into a wide grin that shone as brightly as a scimitar flashing with desert sunlight.

  “Thanks for releasing me, kid,” the man said. “Zohaz the Magnificent at your service.” And with this, he gave a little bow.

  For a few seconds, Dan could only stare. He was absolutely flabbergasted. “You’re a genie,” he said.

  “Bingo! You college kids sure are smart. So anyway, let’s get down to
business. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve been trapped in that bottle for nineteen years, so I don’t want to spend the whole night getting to know you, all right? As thanks for freeing me, I will grant you one wish.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought genies granted three wishes. That’s the way it always is in books.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read,” Zohaz the Magnificent said, glancing at the door. “Look, do you want the wish, or should I be on my way?”

  Dan felt a spike of panic. Of course, he wanted the wish.

  He spent every day wishing. Wishing his life was better, wishing he was done with school, wishing he had money, wishing he had a girlfriend, wishing he could just play RPGs instead of trudging through an empty life that was more boring than a Family Ties marathon.

  But which wish should he choose?

  “Hey,” the genie said. “I hate to seem ungrateful, but I’ve been bottled up for a long time, so… places to go, people to kill, you know what I mean?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Dan said, wringing his hands. “Yeah, I want the wish. Of course, I want it. I just want to choose the right thing, you know?”

  The genie rolled his eyes and edged toward the door. “Come on, kid. It’s now or never. What do you want? Straight A’s? A bunch of money? A girl like that?” He nodded across the room, where a stunningly beautiful redhead hunched over a book, frozen in time.

  Dan was panicking now. Here he was, with the world in his hands, his greatest moment, and he was more afraid of making a mistake than he was excited to choose something great.

  Straight A’s? Yeah, right. That would be a waste.

  A million dollars? Or a billion? That would be cool. He could quit school and just play games forever, but was that really what he wanted?

  His eyes slid back to the redhead and his heart sped up. How much better life would be with a girlfriend like that, a girl magically bound to you. Or even better, a girl like his neighbor, Holly, or even that thief, if she wouldn’t steal from him. They could study together and laugh a lot and have sex whenever he wanted….

  The genie sighed. “That’s it, kid. Time’s up.”

  “Wait.”

  “Ten seconds or I’m gone.”

  “All right, all right,” Dan said. All of these choices were too one-dimensional.

  “Ten, nine…” the genie counted.

  Dan’s mind raced. As a billionaire, he’d just play games all the time, which would certainly beat his current life, but he wanted more than that from existence. With a hot girlfriend, he would still be a stressed-out college kid, washing dishes for minimum wage, up to his eyeballs in student debt, and pretty much doomed to losing his scholarship.

  “Five, four…”

  Dan didn’t just want something cool. He wanted a cool life, one where he was strong and could fight for gold, girls, and glory.

  “Three, two, one…”

  5

  The Wish

  “Make my life like a T&T adventure,” Dan said. Then he panicked again, remembering that genies often messed with sloppily framed questions. “I want my life to be like that, where I’m strong and women like me, and I have abilities and can level up and have adventures and get gold, girls, and glory.”

  A broad smile spread across the genie’s face, and his eyes twinkled with pleasure, mischief, or both. “Excellent,” Zohaz the Magnificent said, his deep voice drawing out the word, almost savoring it. “It shall be done.”

  Dan laughed with nervous excitement. Could this be real?

  “What class?” Zohaz the Magnificent asked.

  “Huh?”

  “What character class?”

  “I don’t know,” Dan said. “What are my choices?”

  The genie sighed. “Here we go again. You waste your whole life playing Towers & Trolls, and you’re going to ask me which classes you can pick? Heroes are decisive, noob. Pick a class, or I’ll pick for you. You want to be a scribe?”

  “No,” Dan said, shaking his head emphatically. Again, his mind raced.

  Being a wizard would be cool, but they had such low hit points. Besides, genies were famous for using irony to turn a wish into a curse. What if he couldn’t find spell components?

  What class, then?

  In high school, he had often played a thief, but what good would that do him? His nineteen-year-old, decidedly male brain imagined scaling a female dorm, sneaking inside, and hiding in shadows, but he rejected this outright. He had higher aspirations than being a tenth-level Peeping Tom.

  He wanted a life of adventure. He wanted to stride boldly into danger and laugh as he crushed his enemies.

  “Barbarian,” he blurted.

  Zohaz the Magnificent nodded. “So be it. You are a first-level barbarian with zero experience points.”

  First level? Dan thought, feeling a little deflated. He couldn’t exactly strut as a first-level barbarian. “I said I wanted to be a powerful character.”

  Zohaz the Magnificent shook his head, eyes glimmering again. This time, the glimmer was definitely mischievous. “You said,” –and though the genie’s mouth kept moving, it was Dan’s voice coming out now– “Make my life like a T&T adventure. I want my life to be like that, where I’m strong, and women like me, and I have abilities and can level up and have adventures and get gold, girls, and glory.”

  Dan growled with frustration. Why hadn’t he wished to be tenth level? So stupid! He could’ve had 100 hit points and a barbarian horde to do his bidding. He could wipe out Garth and Alpha Alpha Alpha frat boys without breaking a sweat. “Will I become powerful?”

  The genie shrugged. “That’s up to you. Your wish has been granted. You now have special abilities and the opportunity to level up.”

  “Special abilities and the opportunity to level up?” Dan said, and snorted derisively. “You sound like a guidance counselor.”

  Zohaz the Magnificent’s big hand settled on Dan’s shoulder. “I gotta jet, kid. Nineteen years, I was cooped up in that gloomy old jug. Can you imagine?”

  The genie laughed. “Actually, I suppose you can. After all, you’ve been cooped up in your gloomy life for just as long. I don’t know what you’re going to do with your new freedom, but I’m going to visit those who imprisoned me and then fly off to someplace warm and sunny to work on my tan.”

  “Wait,” Dan said. “How does this all work? How do I—”

  “You will meet a mentor.”

  “A mentor?” Dan said, scrambling to gather as much information as he could before the opportunity passed. He had a long history of figuring out too late that he should have asked clarifying questions when he’d had the chance. “What mentor?”

  “You will meet him tonight, at your home.”

  “What if I need to talk to you? Is there some magical phrase or something?”

  “I’m a genie, kid, not a plumber,” Zohaz the Magnificent said. He gave Dan’s shoulder a light squeeze. “You’ve made your choice. Now embrace it. Go all in. That’s what you want, right? A life of adventure?”

  Dan nodded.

  “Well, there you have it. No one can give you a life of adventure. You have to go out and take it. Don’t make the same mistake I see all the time. People wish to change their lives, but when the gate opens, they don’t believe in themselves enough to step through. A world full of adventure is meaningless if you lack the courage to become an adventurer.”

  Dan nodded again. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I really will.” But even he could hear the self-doubt in his own voice. Whom was he trying to convince—the genie or himself?

  “That concludes our business,” Zohaz the Magnificent said, and gave a slight bow. He reached into his vest, pulled out a pair of Wayfarer shades, and put them on with a broad smile. “I have necks to break and rays to catch.”

  “Thanks,” Dan said, but before the word even left his mouth, Zohaz the Magnificent vanished with a pop, which might have been kind of cool if the real world hadn’
t come loudly back to life at that same moment.

  First came the tremendous shattering sound of the display case as it finished smashing against the floor. The gem-encrusted bottle shattered next, but that sound was muffled by a chorus of gasps and startled yelps from library workers and patrons who had suddenly come back to life and were turning now to stare at Dan.

  6

  Everything Changes

  Someone let out a loud, shrill scream.

  Dan swiveled in that direction and saw the pretty redhead, her face far from pretty now, twisted as it was into a mask of horror. She was screaming like a startled banshee—and pointing straight at Dan.

  “Stay right there, young man,” a librarian squawked at Dan from her desk. Then she was picking up the phone… to call security, no doubt.

  Well, you wanted adventure, Dan thought. Now you have it. But getting tackled by campus security wasn’t exactly what he’d meant by adventure.

  Without even grabbing his backpack, books, or rewritten essay, he charged out the door and hurried down the stairwell. Normally, his clumsiness would’ve sent him tumbling down the stairs, but luckily, he raced down all four flights without so much as a wobble.

  He strolled out of the library into a beautiful October night. The tree-lined pathways bustled with students, mostly scuffing along in small packs. Overhead in the electric blue sky, stars twinkled between wispy rags of cloud. On the horizon shone a gibbous moon straight out of a Conan novel.

  But he couldn’t stand here, admiring the night. Campus security would be here any second.

  He hurried down the steps, losing himself in the flow of students walking downhill.

  What the hell had happened back there?

  It had all seemed so real, but now that he was outside, breathing the cool night air, he realized that Zohaz the Magnificent must’ve been some kind of hallucination.

  He’d never had hallucinations before, wasn’t on drugs, and didn’t have a fever, but maybe all the stress of this unbelievable day had gotten the best of him.