Creation Mage 6

cobalt blue liquid and held it up to the light. “What is it, sir?”
“Grape spider venom,” Igor said.
The guard almost dropped the vial. “What in the hell do you do with this?” he demanded.
Igor patted him companionably on the shoulder, as if he was letting him in on a great secret. “I dip the ends of my mustache in it and breathe the fumes,” he said. “Gives you some serious get up and go, I can tell you.”
“This is one of the most toxic venoms we know of!” the guard said.
“Like I said, the fumes do make the old noggin tingle a little. Can I keep it?”
“Hells no!” the guard almost screamed.
“Too bad,” the scruffy Rune Mystic lamented. “And what about this?”
At the end of twenty minutes, the Sergeant had well and truly reached his limit.
“Right, that does it!” he said. “You!” he said, the veins in his neck popping as he pointed at Igor.
“Hello, my man!” Igor said cheerfully, licking a bit of spilled powder off his thumb and making a face as if he’d just been hit in the groin by a golf club.
“Empty your pockets of everything and we’ll call it even!” Sergeant Mullock said.
Unable to speak at that moment, Igor simply gave the man a thumbs-up and began removing sachets of powder, pills of every size and color, small bottles, large bottles, and pieces of dripping string from his pockets, the lining of his duster, and from behind his ears.
“And you, Headmaster,” the sergeant said.
“Yes, Sergeant?” Reginald Chaosbane said, saluting flamboyantly for no reason whatsoever.
“Just… Just get… Just you take this sleigh… Get out of here and fly straight to your ranch.”
“Oh, he knows the ranch, Reggie,” Leah said, beaming at the sergeant and patting him on his armored chest.
“Of course, I know the bleeding Chaosbane Ranch,” Sergeant Mullock said through gritted teeth. “Parts of it have exploded four different times this year alone. There was a localized rain of ham sandwiches over it last month after someone threw a tantrum and cast a complex hex just because they’d been served an all vegetarian dinner!”
“Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock,” Reginald and Leah said together.
“I… just… please, just go. Get to your ranch and stay there, d’you hear?” Sergeant Mullock said weakly.
“Loud and clear, Sergeant! Loud and clear!” Reginald said, springing up over the rail and taking the reins in hand.
Leah bent forward and kissed the defeated border guard sergeant on the cheek and said, “And, can I just say, pumpkin, that I love what you’ve done with your hair.”
The sergeant touched at the sweaty lock in the center of his forehead that protruded from under the rim of his helmet-shaped helmet.
“Yes,” Leah said, as she flounced prettily away, “you really must tell me how you get it to grow so luciously out of your nose like that, sweetie-pie.”
Once Mort had been given his weapons back and Igor had divested himself of the last of his illegal drugs, Reginald backed the bulls and turned the sleigh.
Sergeant Mullock gave a signal, and one of the guards slipped a stone keycard into a slot. The end of the border burrow, which had been closed up as tight as a flea’s sphincter, opened up to reveal a rutted dirt road and lush green grass.
As Reginald got the titanic black bulls moving again, I turned in my seat to talk to Igor.
“Aren’t you annoyed that you had to hand over your stash, Igor?” I asked. “I have to say that, when the sergeant told you to dump it all, I thought you took it really well.”
Igor’s bushy eyebrows rose like a couple of helium-filled caterpillars until they disappeared into his sandy thatch of hair.
“My stash?” he said. “What are you on about, my friend?”
“You know, all your herbal and chemical delicacies,” I said.
Igor started chuckling and patted me fondly on the shoulder. “You silly ass, that wasn’t my stash. I’ve been through the border burrow many times, under a few different guises. I know the procedure and always come prepared with an honorary sacrifice of medicaments. So long as the border guards feel like they’ve got one over on old Igor, then they’re happy.”
I frowned. “What, so you’re having some of your ‘medicaments’ delivered? Or are you going for a sober Yuletide this year?” I asked, not quite getting him.
Igor looked appalled at the thought. “Gods no, lad!” he said. “With my family? Are you barking mad?”
“But, you were shaken down,” I insisted.
Igor winked at me and jerked his thumb behind him.
“What in the blazes do you think I’ve got in all those bags back there, Mr. Mauler? Clothes?” the disheveled mage said, and started laughing his ass off.

Chapter 3
We flew low over the countryside that lay around the edges of the capital city of Manafell. A patchwork collection of fields and farmhouses, roads and rivers, large estates, and groups of thatched cottages that might have been called villages if you were feeling particularly generous. Smoke rose from chimneys in elegant white plumes, reaching up to clouds that were still heavy with the promise of more snow to come.
Everything was dusted and covered in a layer of crisp glittering snow, as neat and white as if that annoying bastard from Ace of Cakes had gone nuts with the sieve and powdered sugar.
Or Steven Tyler had been held upside-down on a Friday night and given a good shaking.
It was a very pretty sight indeed. A landscape that could have been slapped on any biscuit label, cracker tin, or syrup bottle. It was the sort of panorama that would have given the marketing executives of everyone’s favorite cola brand a hard-on had they seen it.
It should have been an appropriately languid and festive pace at which we flew over this gorgeous