The Enchantress of World's End

Prince Erigon swallowed, grimacing fastidiously. The amiable young man found Xarda attractive and interesting, but at times a trifle too blood-thirsty for comfort. “I say, you don’t mean to kill a helpless captive, do you?” he inquired anxiously.

“What else?” demanded Xarda, callously. “As we say back home, ‘the only good foe is him who’s gone to Galendil’.”

“I’m afraid I agree with Xarda,” said the Illusionist. “The Enchantress must be disposed of. However, that presents us with quite a problem. Being partly a supernatural entity, she would be quite difficult to destroy. Mere physical force would hardly do the trick, I fear. And, being far from my magical laboratory, I lack at present the magical, ah, ‘clout’, to work the thing.”

They stared at one another thoughtfully. How do you permanently dispose of a dangerous and vindictive enemy who is a bit too powerful to be easily destroyed?

To the surprise of them all, it was Ganelon Silvermane who came up with the best idea. Because the giant youth was rather stolid and slow-speaking, they were all accustomed to thinking of him as being just a bit slower mentally than they were themselves. This, as the Illujsionist could have told them, was a fundamental error. Silvermane was possessed of a first-rate brain, but he tended to rely on others to come up with ideas, either out of habitual diffidence or modesty.

“The hyperspatial tube,” he said suddenly.

They stared at him uncomprehending.

“Eh, my boy, what was that?” asked the Illusionist absently. Silvermane repeated the phrase. They ogled him blankly, so he elaborated on his suggestion.

“The hyperspatial tube. You know, the interdimensional Labyrinth by which Grrff, Phadia and I (of course you haven’t met them yet because they’re still down in the sewers with all those lomagoths) escaped from Shai. Once you’re inside it, it’s awfully hard to figure out where you want to go and just how to get there. Couldn’t the City render the plastic sphere opaque, go back to that place on the Plains where we came out, and pop her inside the tiling at such a speed that by the time she slowed down and managed to get out of the globe, she’d be thoroughly lost. It might take her years to find her way back to Gondwane again?”

They mulled that over in silence for a time. Then the Illusionist cleared his throat.

“Ahem! While your syntax may leave something to be desired in terms of clarity, m’boy, your idea is perfectly feasible. In fact, I can’t think of a better solution to our problem myself! I say, City, can you locate the nearest terminus of the Cavern of a Thousand Perils?”

The City, in its pleasantly neutral voice, said that it certainly could. Extruding plastic nets wherein to snare the durable bubble which enclosed the raging but helpless Enchantress, it chased away her wyvern-chariot, which flew off in the general direction taken by the few surviving Red Magic legionnaires. Then, returning to normal traveling circuits, it lifted itself up onto its air cushion and went whiffling off over the blood-bedewed meadow grass in the direction of the terminus, which happened to be due southwest.

Well before morning paled in the east, the Enchantress had been hurled through the interdimensional gate at such extreme velocity that by the time she slowed and came to rest, she should be hopelessly lost somewhere between the worlds, planes, lands and ages connected by the hyperspatial network.

Doubtless, she would never be able to bother any of them again. Or so they hoped, anyway. Privately, the Illusionist was not so sure. But time would tell, as always.